


Hermione Granger and the Missing Memories

by ProfessorVector



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Muggle/Wizard Relations, Mystery, Post-Battle of Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-12 11:23:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 41
Words: 90,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12958152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorVector/pseuds/ProfessorVector
Summary: Hermione Granger's primary mission, after Voldemort was destroyed, is to retrieve her parents' memories and restore them to their minds... the problem is, she deleted even her own memories of where she hid them, and left herself with only a single clue - "A place that no Pureblood would ever dare travel."Meanwhile, Draco Malfoy's life has been turned upside down, and the unlikely pair find themselves teaming up to find the memories, remove a Dark Mark, all while helping Harry and Ron figure out why things keep going missing from Hogwarts...(Canon-compliant in the sense that it fits with everything said in books 1-7.)





	1. The Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own any of the characters or ideas here; this wonderful universe belongs to J.K. Rowling.

It was two days after Voldemort was destroyed, and Harry woke up late in the morning in his Hogwarts dormitory bed feeling dazed and lost, thirst itching at his throat. He felt his forehead for his scar, which was pain-free in a way it hadn't been in years. It was over, it was really over. Maybe he should just stay in bed for another entire day. What was the purpose of his life now, now that there were no more Horcruxes, no Voldemort, no one to run from and no one to hunt down?

He shook himself out of that thought. He should be _happy_ that it was over, that he could focus on... something else. He could try to re-start things with Ginny, he could train to be an Auror... 

An image of Fred's frozen laugh on his dead body floated to the surface of Harry's mind, and he rolled over again, folding his pillow over his face. He didn't want to face it, the funerals, the press, the destruction that lay in the wake of the war and the rebuilding of the magical community. He didn't even want to think about catching the remaining Death Eaters that were still on the loose. He had practically slept through the previous day, only getting up to eat a sandwich Kreacher brought him in bed, and falling straight back onto his pillow afterwards.

He heard someone come in, but he didn't move. The footsteps approached his bed and stopped, and suddenly Harry was being shaken, hard.

"Oi!" he yelled, and rolled over, expecting to see Ron or Hermione. Instead he saw Neville. 

"Hey," said Neville, grinning. "You slept long enough." Harry raised an eyebrow, and Neville's face suddenly turned serious. "It's, uh, best to get out there now Harry. It'll only be worse the longer you put it off..." he hesitated. "Believe me."

Harry looked at Neville, who had plenty of experience facing constant reminders, through visits with his parents, of the horrors of the first time Voldemort rose to power. Though it was the last thing he wanted to do right now, he sighed and sat up, blinking. He didn't want to know how many were dead, how many others wounded beyond repair. But he'd have to know eventually.

"Where are Ron and Hermione?" he asked. He no longer wanted to be in charge of anything, and wanted to seek out their guidance and company.

"With the Weasleys, they're... planning the funeral," mumbled Neville. "Thought you'd want to be involved." He turned and left the room.

Harry felt a flash of annoyance mixed with gratitude at the realization that none of the Weasleys had tried to wake him for this. He rolled out of bed and started slowly getting dressed, looking out his windows at the blindingly sunny sky. Did the sun really have any business being out on a day like today?

He took several detours through the castle, gathering his thoughts as he made his way slowly to the Great Hall, where he knew they would have gathered. He wandered past the Room of Requirement, which had been destroyed by Fiendfyre, and smelled the burning remnants of its hidden magical objects floating into the hallway... up the staircase towards Ravenclaw tower, sidestepping a deep gash in the staircase that was already magically rebuilding itself... 

Harry sighed as he found himself face to face with a pile of rubble, an entire hallway collapsed from spells cast during the final battle against the Death Eaters and the rest of Voldemort's followers. The quickest way around to the Great Hall would be to take the shortcut underground through the dungeons.

As he stepped down off the final step into the lower level near the Slytherin dormitory, suddenly he heard a heated discussion coming from a hallway ahead.

"I'm not leaving! I don't care if they throw me in Azkaban, I'm not going into hiding! I'm going to have a trial, damn it, because I never wanted any of this, and I deserve to go free!" It was Draco Malfoy. Harry donned his invisibility cloak and stopped at the corner to listen.

"We risked our lives, we risked EVERYTHING to keep you safe, Draco!" came Lucius's furious reply. "You know full well that this is why we joined the ranks of the Death Eaters in the first place! It is always safest to be on the side of power, and now that the Dark Lord has fallen, we are no longer on the side of power. You are coming with us."

"Ha!" spat Draco, "Where to, hiding out in the third mansion I never knew we inherited? Spending the rest of my life holed up with you, never accomplishing anything? I'd rather be in Azkaban!"

"Draco, please," urged Narcissa, "Please, I can't let you be in Azkaban, honey it would destroy you... the Dementors..."

"Mother," he replied, and his voice was somewhat softer towards her. "Go into hiding with Dad. I'll take care of myself. They won't give me a life sentence. I never killed anyone without being under the Imperius curse."

"But Draco, if you could just stay with us for a while..."

"WHY did you guys risk everything to keep me safe? So that I can keep being safe all the way into my thirties?" shouted Draco. "What happened to your dreams of me attending wizards' university, getting a position at the Ministry, managing the manor? I'll serve my time and then get out and start over. Unless..." Harry glanced around the corner and saw Draco rounding on his father, staring at him coldly. "... you want all the fame and wealth for yourself? Afraid of being outranked by your son while you go into your hidey-hole?"

Lucius whipped out his wand and pointed it at his son's neck as Narcissa gasped in protest. Draco, wandless, wrenched his mother's wand out of her hand and jabbed it into his father's chin. Harry had absolutely no desire to watch the two Malfoys dueling, so he took off his invisibility cloak and drew his own wand. " _Expelliarmus!_ "

Both wands flew into his left hand, and he pointed all three at the Malfoys. "Slipped out for a chat while everyone else is planning their relatives' funerals, I see?" Harry said. "I'm going up to the Great Hall. You'll all lead the way, if you please." He gestured with the three wands.

Lucius glared at Harry, but Draco only smirked at his father. "No hiding at your mansion in Russia now, father. We're going to have a trial." Lucius smacked him in the face.

Harry sighed and conjured jets of cold water from all three wands, showering down on the Malfoys' heads. "It'll be fire next time if you guys don't get a move on," he called. Narcissa grabbed her husband and son and marched them down towards the Great Hall, glancing back at Harry. He saw only gratitude in her eyes.

The Great Hall was abuzz with chatter - it had become a place to regroup and plan for the future, to mourn and heal. There was a group of Aurors huddled in a corner, conjuring up holographic maps with their wands and strategizing for the remaining captures. McGonagall was speaking to a large group of teachers and Hogwarts staff, including a few ghosts and house-elves, at the Hufflepuff table, and Harry guessed they were discussing the reconstruction of the castle and the new Hogwarts leadership. A group of former ministry officials were arguing at the Ravenclaw table, and behind them at the Slytherin table was a row of tied up, wandless Death Eaters, guarded by Kingsley. His stomach dropped when he saw the Weasley family and Hermione huddled together at the end of the Gryffindor table.

But first things first. Harry ushered the Malfoys over to the Slytherin table where Kingsley stood. 

"Ah, thanks Potter, knew we were going to have to round up these three eventually, there were just so many others with higher priority." He bound the Malfoys with one swift wave of his wand and forced them onto the bench, then waved his wand again and a shimmering list of names hovered in the air. He scrolled down through the list quickly and checked off three more names. "Excellent. These..." he gestured to the bench, "are the last batch of Death Eaters remaining on the scene at the end of the Battle of Hogwarts, as it were. There are others abroad, but we'll catch them later."

Kingsley turned to the Malfoys. "Not running for the hills this time, Lucius?" Lucius, whose tongue seemed to be bound as well as his body, growled something incoherent.

As Harry turned to join the Weasleys, Kingsley called after him. "Mr. Potter, would you be available this summer to serve as a witness at our prisoners' trials? We want a fair and just proceedings, and as you were at the center of it all, we feel you may have an abundance of information."

Testifying in court. Of course. Another inevitable post-battle cleanup task he would have to participate in. All he wanted to do was hide away from the world for a good few months, anywhere, even the cupboard under the stairs at Number 4 Privet Drive would do. But the entire Wizarding community was looking towards him for leadership, and he knew he could not refuse.

"Sure, Kingsley. Happy to be there," he replied with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

He hurried away towards the Weasleys' gathering. Hermione saw him first, and wriggled out from under Ron's arm to hug Harry tightly. "Harry! Glad you're with us," she said, and Harry's exhausted heart seemed to warm slightly as she pulled him into the group. Ron was staring at the ground, tears streaming down his long nose. George was sitting on the bench, pale, earless, and dazed. Mr. Weasley seemed to be leading the discussion, with Mrs. Weasley in one arm and Ginny in the other. Bill, Charlie, and Percy were giving their father their full attention, as if looking to him for some answer or hope that they knew did not exist, as Fleur stood silently, somber, and beautiful at Bill's side.

"... So we'll all go home, send out owls to all the relatives, and George will draw up a list of Fred's friends. We'll hold the funeral on the 16th then, and we'll arrange for him to be buried next to granddad..." Ginny drifted away from her father and towards Harry, and wordlessly took his hand, which he gripped tightly in return, as if it were his only tether to reality. 

"... And until then," Mr. Weasley continued, "We will stay together, as a family. No hiding at our jobs, talking with reporters, or chasing down scattered Death Eaters. Family time. That's what's most important right now. We'll play Quidditch and have wizards' chess tournaments, take trips to Diagon Alley together, drink pumpkin juice every day and eat around the dinner table every evening."

"Because," he concluded, "If we drift apart in our grief, then You-Know-Who will have won in the end anyway. This is the final battle - to recognize what we have lost, and then begin to live again, together."

He finished the last words with what seemed to be a great effort, then sat down next to George as Molly broke down in sobs.


	2. Malfoys and Memories

Draco found the tongue-tying curse finally lifting when he was thrown into a Ministry cell along with his parents. "Ugh," was the first word he muttered. His mother and father were the last two people in the world that he wanted to be sharing a holding cell with right now.

Naturally, his father started scolding him again the moment his own curse was lifted, and Draco was grateful that at least he had no wand, and wandless magic was impossible in one of these enchanted cells. _Which strategy should I take this time?_ Draco thought. _Fake submission to his will, knowing I'll get away from him later? Shout back? Beat him up like he's a... a Muggle...?_ Draco shook his head, having flashbacks to the Muggle-born wizards that he was forced to torture or kill at the Dark Lord's command. _Beat him up like he's my good-for-nothing abusive father?_ That was better.

Draco waited, not really listening to his father's commands, just waited, for the inevitable first punch to be thrown. For the first time in his life, he resolved to fight back. Without magic. This would be interesting.

He sized up his opponent. Draco was, finally, an inch or so taller than his father, much younger, and, he knew, much more determined to keep his mother from getting hit. 

"ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?" Here it comes. One... two... three...

Draco ducked as Lucius's hand swung at his head and he connected his fist upwards into his father's chin. He had the advantage of surprise: Lucius staggered and fell over backwards and caught himself with his hands, as his son had never dared strike back before. While his mother cried out for them to stop, Draco took advantage of his father's lowered position to aim a kick at his head. 

Lucius dodged the kick, grabbed Draco's ankle and pulled, sending Draco sprawling onto the ground. The men wrestled furiously, and to Draco's horror he found his dad was gaining the upper hand, squeezing his esophagus with one hand while pinning Draco's hands to the ground with the other. He kicked upwards to no avail as his mother shrieked in protest and yanked on her husband's hair. Just when he was beginning to see spots before his eyes, Draco felt his father's hand slacken on his neck at a particularly hard yank from Narcissa. He gasped for air and looked up to see his father getting up and raising his hand to strike his mother, and as he took a step towards her Draco simply put his foot out and tripped him. A tactic he had practiced on annoying little Griffyndors plenty of times.

Lucius collapsed and Draco got up and started kicking his father, taking care to avoid being pulled down again. "DON'T. YOU. EVER. HIT. MOTHER. AGAIN!" he roared with each blow, as Lucius rolled to avoid him but he simply kicked and stomped on his neck, his head, his back, any part of his father his foot could connect with. He felt a huge sense of release with each kick, as if years of painful punishments at the hands of Lucius Malfoy were being Obliviated from his childhood memories. Finally his father was lying limply on the ground and whimpering, much like Draco had been when he was nine years old and had been caught playing tag with the Muggle girl from the next neighborhood. 

With one final kick to seal his victory, he walked to the opposite corner of the cell, wiping blood from his temple and recalling that particular day, many years ago...

_  
"You're IT!" Louise cried happily and started running away from Draco. He laughed and chased after her as she leapt over fallen logs and rocks in the woods behind Malfoy Manor. She dodged his arm as he reached for her and he ended up tripping and tumbling into the nearby stream. Louise laughed and kept running as Draco splattered out of the water - he was instantly dry, though he didn't mean to do magic like that - and finally caught her as she was sloshing her way through a muddy puddle._

_"You're IT now!" he said and started running the other way._

_"Wait!" she called after him, panting. "Let's stop, Dray."_

_"You just want to catch me more easily!"_

_"No I don't! I'm just tired of running. Let's go over to the duck pond by the meadows and watch the turtles."_

_Draco hesitated. "Let's not. That's too close to my house."_

_"So?"_

_"So my father would be mad at me if he saw me with... I mean, he doesn't like it when I play like this."_

_Louise scrunched up her nose. "Your dad sounds mean, and that's stupid. Come on, we can always run and hide if he shows up!"_

_Draco doubted that, but the eight-year-old grabbed his arm and started pulling him enthusiastically towards the small lake. "Well, okay..."_

_They were sitting at the pond, watching the turtles sun on the large rocks that jutted out from the middle of the water. "They're so slow," complained Draco. "I bet I can make them move."_

_"No, don't scare them!"_

_But the turtles didn't seem scared, they just turned, one by one, to look at the two children, and then started bobbing their heads up and down in a most un-turtle-like fashion. Draco grinned at the small entertainment he had managed, and simply couldn't wait until he had a real wand of his own._

_"Wow, look at what they're doing!" squealed Louise. "Oh! And look at the rainbow!"_

_Draco had made his signature rainbow appear in the sky without meaning to... it was one of his own, that was for sure, since the colors were more darkened and flourescent than a natural rainbow, and there were much more greens and navy blues and purples than usual in the dark, glowing mix of colors. "That one's for you!" he grinned, and he picked a pale yellow flower out of the ground that had not been there a moment ago, offering it to the little girl at his side._

_He froze as he heard a man's voice behind him. "Draco Perseus Malfoy!" his father commanded, and he promptly dropped the flower. "Just what do you think you're doing?"_

_Draco found himself being dragged all the way across the meadows and back into the manor as his father scolded him. Soon the fatherly lecture was escalating to a yell. "...And don't. You. EVER play with a filthy little Muggle like that again. Muggles burned witches at the stake and tortured wizards for thousands of years! We are the Malfoys, and what does that mean?"_

_"We believe in wizards first," Draco recited by heart, feeling guilty, as his father roughly released him onto the polished hardwood floor. "But Dad, Louise is different, she's nice..."_

_"She is guilty simply by being a Muggle, and I do not want you associating with them. It is for your own good! Now I will give you one chance to answer me: Is. That. Clear?" Draco wanted to please his father, he looked up to him as his hero... but never playing tag with Louise again? He hadn't even had a chance to give her the flower..._

_He looked up at his dad defiantly and crossed his little arms in front of him. "No!"_

_And Lucius took out his wand. "Crucio!" he yelled for the first time, fire in his eyes, and his nine-year-old son fell to the ground, writhing and screaming from the torture spell. "You are too old now to defy your father!" He lifted the curse after several agonizing seconds._

_"Not a word to your mother about this, or else next time it will be worse," he hissed. "Now. You will treat Muggles like the lowlife scum that they are from this moment onwards, and uphold the Malfoy family name. Is that clear?"_

_Draco, pale, wide-eyed, and crying, nodded. "Yes, father." He covered his face with his hands and sobbed._

_That evening as little Draco sat on the edge his bed, sniffling and holding the spot on his side where the Cruciatus curse hit him, silently vowing to be a better son, their house-elf Dobby appeared in Draco's room with his favorite bedtime snack. "Master Draco seems unhappy today," the elf squeaked. "Dobby put extra care into the cockroach clusters, good sir!"_

_And for the first time in his life, Draco angrily kicked the elf's bony shins.  
_


	3. Next steps

Being back at the Burrow without Fred seemed to finalize the reality that he was really gone. Between writing letters and playing halfhearted games of Wizards' Chess at Mr. Weasley's insistence, the Weasleys mostly disappeared to their rooms or simply stared into space. George twice attempted to tell a joke and abruptly stopped halfway through. The magical clock had all hands pointing up to "Home" except for Fred's, whose fading arrow pointed out at a funny angle to the word "Resting" displayed in small black letters. 

Oddly, the dismal mood seemed to clear Hermione's mind, and she mentally began making a checklist of the post-war tasks that lie ahead. Molly had insisted that she and Harry come to the Burrow to take part in the family activities, but Hermione couldn't help feeling a little out of place. She had never been all that close to the twins, and though she was now Ron's girlfriend ( _Probably? They hadn't actually had time to discuss it..._ ), she didn't feel she was officially part of the Weasley family yet. 

What she really wanted to find out, first and foremost, was whether she could retrieve her parents' memories from where they were now hidden. She hoped her plan had worked, but if it had, it would take time and effort to decode her own protections and retrieve the two orbs in which she had stored the memories. For Hermione had hidden the memories even from herself.

Next on the list of priorities was the reporters and the news stories. She knew that the true stories needed to get out before facts got twisted and spun, before the power-hungry tried to use the post-war confusion to rise to power and create a new regime that, while better than rule by Death Eaters, would be less than perfect for the Wizarding world. 

Then there were the trials - standing up for all the Imperiused witches and wizards who served Voldemort through no will of their own, testifying against those who deserved to be thrown in Azkaban. _Although_ , Hermione thought, _we DO really need to rethink the use of Dementors in a wizards' prison. Is it humane to use them at all, and even if it were, does it harm released prisoners' chances of once again becoming functioning members of wizarding society?_ She pointed her wand at her mind and carefully filed that idea under potential S.P.E.W.-related causes to follow up on.

Finally, there was the more trivial matters of returning to Hogwarts for her final year to finish up her NEWTs, getting into one of the very few and very selective wizarding universities to truly master a sub-specialty... _Perhaps I'll focus in inter-species magical relations_ , she thought to herself, and sorted away that idea as well. There was also the matter of her relationship with Ron, and, finally, getting Harry back into gear. 

Well, that last one would be the easiest task. Might as well get it done now.

She found Harry practicing loops by himself on his broomstick out over the fields. She smiled at the sight. "Harry!" she called after him. He looked around, then sped towards the ground and leapt off his broom, landing easily. Hermione smiled to herself. She would never have the kind of physical grace that Harry had when it came to flying.

"Hey, Hermione. Want a turn?" He offered her the broom.

She laughed and shook her head. "What I want to know is, what's going on with your relatives?"

"My relatives?" repeated Harry, confusion etched on his face. "What relatives?"

Hermione sighed, hands on her hips, exasperated at Harry's thickness. "Your aunt and uncle and cousin! The Dursleys? Have they been safely returned? Is it safe to do so?"

"Oh! Right," said Harry, realization dawning on his face. "Yeah I should check on that."

"Right, I thought you might need reminding. Also, I've been thinking Harry, the two of us ought to seek out reporters for interviews. The public needs to know the truth, before they start publishing whatever skrewt dung comes dripping out of Rita Skeeter's Pen of Perversion."

"Yeah, right, right," replied Harry, thinking. "Actually, there's something I need to fill you in on too." He told her about the conversation he overheard the Malfoy family having in the hallway at Hogwarts. 

Hermione listened intently, thinking. "I wonder why they didn't flee right away? And why they weren't captured immediately?"

"They were just sitting around after the final battle, if you remember, and Kingsley said the Aurors were rounding up the actively destructive and dangerous Death Eaters first. He predicted the Malfoys would just leave and hide and they'd be easy enough to seek out later. But I suspect Malfoy - Draco, that is - wouldn't leave the castle, and he had stayed overnight like the rest of us. His parents were probably hanging around trying to force him to leave with them."

He paused and prodded the ground with his broom. "Hermione, Kingsley asked me to testify as a witness at the courts. Most people are clear-cut cases - Stan Shunpike was Imperiused, he shouldn't be locked up, and Yaxley and Rookwood can get fed to the dementors for all I care. 

"But," he hesitated again, "how do I talk about Malfoy and his dear old mum? His dad ought to be thrown in Azkaban for life, but Narcissa was the entire reason that I was able to survive after Voldemort killed me. And Draco bought us time at the Manor, and it sounds like he might have been forced into some of his actions too!" 

Hermione understood immediately, and took Harry's hands in hers as his Firebolt fell to the ground. "First of all, Harry, remember what Sirius said, the world isn't divided into good people and Death Eaters. This is why we have courts, to decide on the appropriate punishment for misdeeds that we want to discourage, and to reward behaviour that we like to see in the Wizarding community.

"And Harry, you're not _on_ the jury, you'll just be a witness. You'll give them information and then it's up to _them_ to decide on the appropriate punishment."

Harry considered this for a moment, and slowly nodded. "But I want to make sure their punishment IS appropriate. What if someone like Umbridge is on the jury?" At that Hermione had to smile and give Harry's hands a squeeze. He never could seem to resist getting involved when it came to injustices of this sort. But that was why he was Harry Potter, the boy - no, the man - who she would always consider to be her best friend. He stood up for things boldly when she would have been more cautious, more rule-abiding and less unabashedly morality-driven and loyal than the man who stood before her.

"Hermione," he continued, gripping her hands tightly in return, "If I'm off at a funeral or hunting Death Eaters during one of these trials, and you're standing in for me as a witness, can you make sure they're not unfair? The ministry is still in questionable hands, I've never trusted them even before Voldemort took it over. Don't let them give Narcissa a life sentence in Azkaban, and as much as I'd love to, don't let them lock up her little slimy coward of a son either. Not yet, anyway."

And there it was. Harry was being a leader again, whether he knew it or not. Mission accomplished. "Okay, Harry," agreed Hermione. "I'll do my best."

He picked up his broom and they walked back to the Burrow, arm in arm. One task, at least, was complete.


	4. Trials and Tribulations

It was two weeks of cold silences from his father and hugs from his mother, stale food brought in by Ministry elves on a not-so-regular schedule, cramped together in tight quarters and watching guards march up and down the rows of temporary holding cells filled with his fellow Death Eaters, before something finally happened.

"Mr. Lucius Malfoy, it is time for your trial. Please come with us." The guard pointed his wand at Draco and his mother, opened the cell doors, and gestured for Lucius to follow as another guard magically bound Lucius's hands behind his back. 

When his father was safely out of sight, his mother turned towards him. "Oh Draco, my son!" she pulled him tight into another embrace. "They will call me next, and I will do everything in my power to take the blame for anything you have done. Promise me that you'll claim to be innocent, claim to have been Imperiused for everything! I can't have you going to Azkaban, my darling..."

He had been expecting this. "Mother," he said, cradling her head against his chest, "I'm going to tell them the truth. I'm tired of the war, I hated the things the Dark Lord had me do, and I know exactly to what degree I was under the Imperius curse. Lying and hiding won't help, they'll find us in the end and then they'd punish us both even more. Potter and gang always find out the truth in the end," he finished miserably. 

It was a thought that had been forming for the last year, thoughts of choices and right and wrong that Dumbledore had spoken of on the top of the tower just before his death... and yet he had been waiting, holding onto the hope that the Dark Lord would gain full power, that he and his parents would be powerful in the new regime, that everything would fall into place as his parents had promised him his entire life. And then the Dark Lord fell, with Potter having figured out everything - secrets that not even Voldemort himself knew about, that he proclaimed aloud just before finishing him off with his own wand...

His mother had shook her head and started to cry on his shoulder. He held her and smoothed her unusually dirty hair consolingly. "I didn't want to admit it, mother, but father's right. It's always safest to be on the side of power. Potter and gang are in power right now, and that's... the way it should be. Don't tell father, but I'm glad it was him and not the Dark Lord."

"He saved you that night, didn't he," said Narcissa. "Harry Potter spared your life."

Draco broke away from his mother, faced the cell wall, feeling guilty. Part of him hated that Harry had taken pity on him and Goyle and saved them from the burning Room of Requirement. But then, didn't Draco take pity on Potter when his father was about to call the Dark Lord that night in their manor? Fair was fair.

"Why didn't you and Father flee?" he asked, changing the subject, with a renewed pang of guilt at his insistence on staying at Hogwarts after the battle. "You could have easily hidden at the Russian mansion without me, and avoided your sentences..."

Narcissa sighed. "Draco, I am going to tell you something that your father must never know."

He looked around with curiosity at this, and she continued, "When Potter came to us that night, and turned himself in, he just stood there, ready to die, and the Dark Lord used the Avada Kedavra curse. He sent me to check if Potter was truly dead..." Draco's eyes widened as he realized what had happened, but his mother finished anyway. "And I asked Harry if you were still alive and in the castle. That was all I cared about, I just wanted the fighting to stop and to see you again. He whispered a yes, and I knew that he had spared you. So I turned to the Dark Lord and declared Harry Potter to be dead.

"If I hadn't done that," she went on, "If I hadn't lied to the Dark Lord, Potter would have been killed, and the others, in the castle, they may have killed you, while your father and I would have been commanded elsewhere. I... couldn't..." and she put her head in her hands.

Draco stared, shocked at his mother's treachery to their cause, after all she had taught him over the years, but also oddly relieved. Lessened was his guilt at his own reluctance to obey the Dark Lord, and Dumbledore's words seemed to make more sense, unblurring as if finally properly focusing a telescope lens.

"Mother..." he started, and all the guilt he had felt at everything he had done came tumbling out of him. He told his mother how much he hated the torture and killing that Voldemort had forced him to do, about how he had accidentally cursed both Katie Bell and Ron Weasley in the effort to kill Dumbledore. He told her that he didn't know whether he really wanted to be a Death Eater, but he was trying so hard to uphold the Malfoy name and follow in Lucius's footsteps, until finally something snapped when his father killed an innocent Muggle girl in cold blood before his eyes.

"And I'm not even _sorry_ for beating up father," he finished, and she just shook her head.

"Oh, my little Draco... but I suppose you're a man now, aren't you?" She hugged him a final time and sighed. "I love you so much, my son. Take care of yourself, for me, then, just promise me that. Please."

"I will, Mother." He understood now, her sacrifice, the reason she wouldn't leave the country without him. "And I love you too."

Then Narcissa was taken in for trial.

Two hours of tapping rhythms out on his cell wall later, Draco was led into the courtroom. His parents were not there, and a full jury sat in red robes in three rows at the side of the circular room. The rest of the courtroom was filled with witnesses, observers, reporters, notetakers, guards, and of course, the new temporary Minister of Magic, Bernard Fudge, brother of that old dolt Cornelius.

"Draco Malfoy," a woman in the front announced, as the guards forced a vial of Veritaserum down his throat. "Charged with attempted murder of Albus Dumbledore, with the use of the Cruciatus curse of Voldemort's captives Amelia Wadsworth and Oliver Ollivander, and of the killing of three unidentified persons on the basis of Priori Incantatem on his wand, in the time period before his wand was taken by Harry Potter." 

"We present Mr. Ollivander as witness for the prosecution."

Mr. Ollivander stood up, looking aged and wrinkled, and Draco shut his eyes and put his head in his hands as Ollivander described the torture that he had inflicted on his own wandmaker.

"Do you deny any of the actions you are accused of?" asked the Ministry woman.

"No, I do not," said Draco, looking up at her, who realized he could not lie if he wanted to under the influence of the Veritaserum, and felt it was sort of cheating. He wanted a fair chance to be truthful of his own accord.

"Were any of these actions performed under the influence of the Imperius curse, the Confundus charm, Controller's Draught, or other methods of coercion?"

"I was under the Imperius curse, cast by the Dark Lord, for all three uses of the Avada Kedavra curse," he said, the words feeling like they were being pulled from his mouth. "And I endured the Cruciatus curse as a punishment for not inflicting it of my own accord."

There was a murmur through the room at that. "And for the Cruciatus curses you cast and the attempted murder of Albus Dumbledore, did you act of your own accord?"

He didn't want to answer, but the veritaserum seemed to draw the answer from his soul. "Yes," said Draco, and put his face in his hands again. He couldn't stand it, the public shaming, it was worse than any dementor, he wished they would just get on with it and lock him up for a few years...

"We now present the witness for the defense, Hermione Granger."

He looked up, surprised, having expected it to be Potter or even Weasley, not the Muggle-born Granger. She stood and faced the jury, and cleared her throat.

"Ladies and Gentleman of the Jury," she began. "If it had not been for Draco Malfoy's actions, which were entirely his own, I would not be standing here today, and Voldemort would be in power. Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and I were captured two months ago and brought to Malfoy Manor, where Draco was set with the task of identifying whether Harry was truly himself, as I had cursed Harry with a Stinging Jinx in order to partially mask his true identity. 

"Draco refused to confirm or deny to Bellatrix Lestrange that it was indeed Harry Potter standing before him, and when he was asked whether I, who was not disguised, was Hermione Granger, he also refused to confirm or deny it, though we had gone to school together for six years and he _certainly_ knew who I was."

There were a few scattered, nervous laughs from the courtroom. 

"In his hesitance, his small refusals to do the bidding of Voldemort and his closest followers, this bought us the time that we needed to escape Malfoy Manor with the knowledge of the location of one of the Horcruxes, namely, the Gringotts' vault of Bellatrix Lestrange. Which we _did_ break into, and for which you should put us on trial as well, by the way, to start the new Ministry off to a fair start. Of course, I would recommend a wartime acquittal in our case."

At this there was earnest laughter and the reporters' pens scurried frantically and cameras clicked from all angles. Draco shook his head in disbelief. Where was she going with this?

"In another instance, Draco Malfoy was instrumental in stopping his friend Vincent Crabbe from killing me and Harry Potter in a duel in the Room of Requirement over the last stationary Horcrux." Stationary Horcrux, Draco thought, that must mean the ones that weren't Harry, the snake, and Voldemort himself... he had started to put the pieces together from overheard whisperings among the guards outside his cell... 

Granger suddenly frowned, looking unnerved, and Draco followed her line of sight to see a thin old witch with ratty silver hair, wearing patchwork stockings under an old grey skirt, glaring at Granger with the most vile expression of hatred he had seen since his aunt Bellatrix last looked upon Dobby the Elf. Who was the woman? he wondered, and suddenly the woman's eyes were fixed on him with the same glare of hatred. He blinked in confusion.

Granger glanced down at her notes and pressed on with her speech. "In a third display of the defendant's hesitation, I have here..." she pulled out a vial with a swirling memory. "The memory of Harry Potter of the night that Albus Dumbledore died. Mr. Malfoy was indeed tasked with killing Albus Dumbledore, and the memory clearly shows Mr. Malfoy lowering his wand, indicating that he had decided not to go through with the Killing Curse. I can only assume that this is why Voldemort had to force him to kill and torture others over the course of the last year - he does not have it in him to kill." 

She looked at him directly, as if challenging him to contradict her assertion, and he boldly met her eyes. Something seemed to pass between them, a curiosity, an understanding, and to his amazement Granger blushed red and blinked several times before turning back to the jury. 

"Many of you may be wondering how these facts pertain to this trial. After all, they do not prove innocence, they do not contradict the overwhelming evidence of the crimes that this man has committed. But like Harry Potter's use of the Imperius curse on a Gringotts' goblin and his use of the Cruciatus curse on Death Eater Alecto Carrow, some Unforgivable crimes need to be seen in the light of their purpose, their context, and the end result of the action." There were murmurs throughout the courtroom now, and he could tell the mood had shifted among the jury.

"We must ask ourselves, as the Wizarding community," Hermione continued resolutely, her voice clear and commanding, now turning to face the large crowd of reporters on the other side of the courtroom. "In order to create a fair and just system of punishment and reward, in which cases are the Unforgivable Curses forgivable after all? In the absence of the influence of the Imperius curse, is there not also the influence of a threat, or the influence of pressure to follow one's own father's commands, when one is underage?" Draco winced and covered his face with one hand, but still kept an eye open to look at Granger. 

"In which cases is a crime an indication of further crimes to come, when is it a mistake that the criminal will soon come to regret, and when is it simply a use of power for a greater good?

"These are difficult questions, and I believe that the way this particular case is handled will set an important precedent for our new Ministry," and she looked directly at Fudge the Younger. "Having been inducted into his parents' society at the age of sixteen, and having then been faced with difficult choice after difficult choice for the last two years, having lowered his wand before completing his task to kill Albus Dumbledore, having bought us the time to escape from Malfoy Manor, and having endured torture rather than killing by his own hand, I believe this case is clear. Draco Malfoy did his best to resist the Dark Lord's powerful influence given the circumstances. I am not saying his horrendous actions should be forgiven. I am not saying they should go unpunished. I am only suggesting that the man sitting before us, who was planning to turn himself in and trying to convince his parents to do the same, should be given a proper second chance."

Draco was now staring openly at his former classmate. He had seen Hermione Granger annoyingly reciting textbook quotations in class, but he had never really seen her speak her own beliefs in such a convincing manner, much less espouse strong opinions on how the Wizarding world should be run. Wasn't she Muggle-Born? How did she know so much about Wizarding justice? And why was she so insistent that they give him a second chance? 

Not that he was complaining. 

He glanced over to the witch with the checkered stockings, and a chill ran down his spine as he realized she was still glaring directly at Granger with the same expression of hatred, an unmistakable desire for revenge or retribution. He had spent too long with his aunt to not know that look. He found himself hoping Granger had the good sense in her to recognize that look when she saw it.

"To make my final point, I see that no one here has attempted to stop me from speaking out of turn in both this defense and the previous, when so much of what I have just said has nothing to do with the role of a witness. As such, jurors and members of the Court, I implore you to examine your own biases, not just the common ones against Muggle-born witches like myself, but your biases against the `Other', the groups of people that you despise, like the Death Eater on the foor before us, before making your decision."

She sat down, and a tense silence filled the courtroom. Draco's heart lifted slightly at Granger's words 'in both this defense and the previous', hoping that that meant she had also defended his mother, possibly with another memory from Potter. There was whispering among the jurors, and the head Juror stood up. "The court requests a recess to discuss the evidence."

Draco was sent back to his holding cell, and he wondered where his parents were now. Probably in Azkaban already, and he felt sick for his mother, who had done far worse things for power than he had. His thoughts swirled with Hermione Granger's words, and he felt giddy and a bit guilty that he might be getting off even easier than he thought.

The rest of the meetings were a blur, and he found himself being sentenced to three months in Azkaban, just in time to return for his last year of Hogwarts along with the other students who had missed their seventh year. His heart leapt with a joy that he would never admit at the thought of returning to the castle one last time, of the wonder of being given a second chance. That alone should be enough to survive three months with the dementors.


	5. The Only Clue

Getting Harry back into gear? Check. Trials and interviews? Check. Ron? Check.

It was nearing the end of July, and Hermione was going through her wand-assisted mental checklist of post-war cleanup activities. She and Ron had finally had a long talk about their relationship and their future. They decided they would both return to Hogwarts for their final year of study, and then move together somewhere to begin work or university, quite possibly in London, where there were plenty of opportunities for magical folk. 

It was really quite delightful, dating Ronald Weasley. She had dreamed of it for a long time, throughout their rocky friendship, and it was pleasant to actually be going for walks together and kissing in the summer heat. The change in him over the course of the last year was remarkable. She supposed that some people just needed time to grow up.

Ah yes, the last thing on her list, and the most important. Her parents' memories. 

She stared at the ceiling in her bed in the Burrow and sighed. She had no idea where to start.

Hermione had stored her parents' memories of her and of their own identities in Unbreakable Orbs, and then taken every possible precaution in order to hide the orbs, including removing her own memories of where they were hidden. After all, she couldn't take the risk that the information would be obtained via Legilimency, in the course of their quest to find the Horcruxes. 

So she left herself with only two memories of her own to start from: One, that her parents were living in Australia under other names (what names they were under, she didn't know - she had made up names for Harry in order to spare him the knowledge of just how far she had separated herself from them). And two, that she had hidden her own memory of how to retrieve the orbs in... what was it, oh yes:

_A place that no Pureblood would ever dare travel._  


That was the one clue she had left herself, to get started. A place that no Pureblood would ever dare travel. She tried to think of places that that might mean... Somewhere heavily populated by Muggles would of course be a natural answer to the riddle... Or maybe something to do with Harry? Godric's Hollow? But no, Voldemort traveled there himself... Where on Earth would Purebloods be afraid of?

Also, not every Pureblood was afraid of Muggles, the Weasleys were proof enough of that. Then again, she thought, they don't exactly consider themselves Purebloods, and since it was she who made up the riddle, she wouldn't have thought to consider that. Or maybe she did, to make it harder?

Hermione got up and groaned. She had hidden the answers too well, even from herself. She would have to ask Harry and Ron for help.

But when she asked them later that day, they were just as stumped as she was. "Well, Purebloods like Quidditch, but not Muggle sports, so maybe it's in a soccer stadium or something?" guessed Ron.

"That's hardly a place they'd never dare travel though, and non-Purebloods like Quidditch too," said Hermione. "No, it has to be something more like a wedding between a Muggle and a wizard or witch, something they definitely wouldn't want to watch."

"Hey, I'd watch a wedding like that!" Harry protested. Hermione rolled her eyes. Harry wasn't Pureblood in the strict sense, even though both of his parents were magical - his mother had been Muggle-born.

"But really, it must have something to do with prejudice against Muggle-borns, because why else would I phrase the riddle that way? I know not all Pureblooded wizards are like that, of course not, just look at Sirius... but it has to be what I meant, in the riddle, I don't see what else it could be..."  
Harry jumped up. "The _riddle_! You said the riddle!"

"Yes?"

"What if that in itself is a reference to Tom Riddle? And it actually means, what's the one place Voldemort himself would never dare travel?"

"Well, the one person he was always afraid of was Dumbledore, maybe it's the headmaster's office!" suggested Ron.

Hermione considered this. It seemed like a good possibility, especially with the Pensieve in the office, she may have done a cryptospell on her memory and kept it in the Pensieve so that only she could access it. It would make sense, since she was at Hogwarts at the time she realized she should hide her parents, and she also had the idea well before Dumbledore was killed.

"Yes, it just might be! I can check when we get to Hogwarts then. Speaking of which, I want to look through some of my books for the upcoming classes... get a head start in Arithmancy..." she kissed Ron and hugged Harry and scurried upstairs to her and Ginny's bedroom. She knew Ron and Harry would be chuckling to each other about her study habits, but she didn't care. She was relieved to finally have a lead, and to realize that she could go back to her studies while working out the mystery of her missing parents on the side.

At least they were safe. That, she knew.


	6. Hogwarts Reborn

Harry, Ron, and Hermione simply Apparated into Hogsmeade rather than taking the Hogwarts Express, as they were now adult students with more freedoms than usual. They would also be free, this year, to wander about the castle and leave the grounds as they pleased, and they could have even lived outside of Hogwarts and simply come in for classes if they wanted. All three of them chose to live in the castle, however, if only for convenience -- if they ever wanted to go to Number 12 Grimmauld Place for a change of pace, they still had that option as well.

Or at least, Harry had that option, and Ron could go home to the Burrow... Hermione realized that she didn't really have a home of her own at the moment. Her parents had sold their house when they moved, and while Harry and the Weasleys would always make her feel welcome to stay with them, it was a bit disconcerting to realize that she couldn't have a home of her own right now even if she wanted one; a flat would be too much for her to afford right now, cut off from her family's funds.

She suddenly wondered if going to her dream wizards' university, St. Catterwall's in London, would be too far out of reach for her budget. Perhaps she would have to work part time? She thought of her plans with Ron, and realized that he certainly wouldn't be able to support her with any job he was likely to get, at the Ministry or otherwise... Yes, she'd have to work, maybe start working over the summer...

Or just get her parents back.

She jumped as Ron prodded her in the back. "Hermione? We were asking which classes you're signed up for.''

"Oh, sorry...'' she said, flustered, "I was just, I mean...'' and she managed the idle chatter with Ron and Harry about the upcoming term, her mind focused on the Pensieve in the Headmaster's office.

As they walked towards the castle, they heard the unmistakable `pop' of Apparation behind them, and saw a tall, thin, pale man with a haunted-looking, gaunt face flanked by two Ministry guards. Draco Malfoy. His hair and clothing were still well-groomed as ever -- he must have stopped back at his Manor before arriving -- and yet his face held the empty, hollow stare of Sirius's first year out of Azkaban.

The two Ministry guards nodded to the three of them. "Mr. Potter,'' one saluted, and they marched Malfoy on at wandpoint at a fast pace. Malfoy was staring blankly ahead, as though he was not even aware of the trio's presence.

"Little git got out of Azkaban, I see,'' grumbled Ron, "What, did he pay them off?''

"Oh! Didn't I tell you about his trial?'' Hermione responded, and told them about the three Malfoys' trials. Lucius was locked up for ten years with no possibility of bail or parole. Narcissa was sentenced to five years in Azkaban, with possibility of parole pending further scrutiny of Harry's memory of the final night and her betrayal of Voldemort.

And Draco -- she felt an odd feeling of butterflies as she remembered the way he had stared at her in the courtroom -- he had been given three months in Azkaban followed by a mandatory return to Hogwarts. He would also have to be accompanied by a guard for the next four months, paid for out of Malfoy's own pockets, any time he wished to leave the castle grounds.

Then Hermione remembered another odd feeling from the courtroom, and told Harry and Ron about the old witch with the checkered stockings glaring at her with a look of pure hatred. The look reminded her of Bellatrix Lestrange, and she fleetingly wondered whether it was Bellatrix using the polyjuice potion before remembering that Mrs. Weasley had defeated Bellatrix in the Battle of Hogwarts.

All three of them breathed a "wow" as they rounded the corner that brought the castle into view... Hogwarts seemed to have rebuilt itself more beautifully and stronger than it was before the battle. Four great spires rose towards the sky at its corners, eclipsing even the Astronomy Tower, which was now in the center; outdoor bridges and skywalks and staircases now stretched and spiraled from tower to tower, glittering with what Hermione recognized to be a Weather Stabilization Enchantment, so that it would still be pleasant to traverse them in the winter months. The walls that had been blasted apart or torn apart by giants in the battle three months ago were a bright golden-red brick pattern that blended gracefully into the solid gray of the older foundations. The entire castle seemed to glow with newly placed enchantments, the grounds were bright green and grassy, even the Forbidden Forest seemed to be sparkling in its own dark way.

Hermione wordlessly took both Harry and Ron's hands and the three of them walked in silent gladness the rest of the way into the castle, remembering the battle and all that was lost and all that was won.

* * *

In the Great Hall, the Sorting was already underway and they joined Ginny and Dean at the Gryffindor table. Neville, Seamus, and many of their other classmates were not there, having graduated by taking the replacement exams offered at the end of the summer. Luna, who had been captured for the better part of the last school year, sat at the Ravenclaw table, twirling a small, bright orange globe around in her hands. Malfoy sat alone at the far end of the Slytherin table, ignoring the dirty looks being thrown his way from Slytherins and Gryffindors alike.

The Sorting had finished, and McGonagall, who now wore Headmasters' robes, stood up and pointed her wand to her throat to amplify her voice. "Welcome!" she called, "To a new year at Hogwarts!"

Applause broke out throughout the hall, and Hermione could think of no one more deserving to follow in the footsteps of Dumbledore -- and Snape -- as Headmaster of Hogwarts.

"Before the feast begins, I have some announcements. There are several changes that have taken place at Hogwarts, as I am sure the more observant among you have noticed." Several students laughed. "Hogwarts has mostly rebuilt itself, due to the ingenious magic of the school's founders, which means that no one yet knows exactly how the castle is currently laid out. We are therefore offering an elective extra course on magical map-making,'' Harry looked up with interest, "and students interested in taking this course and helping out should speak with our new Transfiguration professor, Theodore Tonks.''

She gestured to Tonks's father, and Hermione realized that Harry's orphaned godson Teddy must be with his grandmother, Andromeda. She felt again, with a shock, how many parents of innocent children were lost in the war or sent to Azkaban, and how much more burden there was on remaining witches and wizards to share the tasks of parenting and filling vacated job positions.

Professor Tonks stood up, and the Great Hall applauded to welcome him.

McGonagall continued, "We would also like to welcome Professor Giovanni Bellavita, who has just arrived from Italy to be our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.'' A stocky, muscular wizard with a thick head of black hair flecked with gray and a smooth-shaven face stood up and nodded to the students with a smile.

"Finally, we are pleased to announce a new addition to the maintenance staff, Alexa Wadsworth, who will be helping Argus Filch with the continued castle renovations and caretaker duties.''

Hermione looked to the end of the staff table to see an old witch with unkempt gray hair and checkered stockings. She gasped. "That's the woman who was glaring at me during Malfoy's trial!'' she whispered to Harry and Ron, and Ron looked around in alarm and gripped her hand protectively.

"Finally,'' McGonagall announced, "It would be unwise for us to move on as a school as if nothing out of the ordinary happened during the last year. Some of you were tortured at the hands of the Carrows last year. Some of you lost your parents during the war...''

"Thanks to YOU!'' came an angry shout from a small second-year at the Slytherin table who was glaring at McGonagall, his fists clenched. A murmer rose from that end of the hall, and Hermione saw Malfoy put his face in his hands.

"...and we are going to do everything we can, for all students,'' she continued, looking directly at the little Slytherin, "...to forgive one another, to not hold any student responsible for their parents' actions, to express our sympathies for those who have lost loved ones in the war, and to move forward as a united school on the path to a better future.

"We have therefore designed a Room of Recovery just down from this Hall, specifically for sorting through your own thoughts in a Pensieve. Each student has been assigned a one-hour session with Professor Bellavita, who will instruct you on the use of the Pensieve. After the first three weeks, the Pensieve will be available for students to sign up to use in order to work through with any war-related memories that you may find unsettling. The Pensieve is not to be used for studying, as that can just as easily be done in a library.

"This year we have some eighth year students who have returned for a missed final year at Hogwarts, and due to the small number of these students, they have been assigned separate single-room dormitories'' --- Harry and Ginny looked at each other and grinned, clearly looking forward to the extra privacy --- "which Hogwarts has conveniently created above the respective common rooms in the course of its repairs. We expect the eighth years to act as leaders in your houses, and we encourage younger students to look to your older peers for guidance.''

Hermione looked around at the scared-looking first years at her table and the other downcast faces of those who had lost a parent during the war, and knew exactly what McGonagall was trying to encourage. She could deal with the loss and recovery of her own parents much better than a 12-year-old could, and she would have to be a sort of older sister for them. Harry, predictably, looked oblivious to McGonagall's implications. Ron's stomach grumbled and he simply watched the empty plates hungrily. But across the Hall, Draco Malfoy was now looking towards the angry second-year Slytherin boy, deep in thought.

"Finally, a note to first-years that the Forbidden Forest is forbidden, and no one may enter it without permission from a teacher.

"And now... let the feast begin!''

There were scattered cheers as the plates and goblets filled with food and drink, and another year at Hogwarts had begun. As Ron, Harry, and Ginny ate happily, Hermione found that she could hardly touch her food. Her mind was on the Pensieve, and the fact that she may not be able to access it for another several weeks, at least until all the individual meetings with Bellavita had finished.

Then she remembered that she herself had an upcoming meeting with Bellavita. She waited impatiently for the end of the feast and ran to catch McGonagall as she was about to leave the Hall.

"Professor, is the Pensieve in the Room of Recovery the same as the one that was in the headmaster's office?''

"Why yes, Miss Granger, why do you ask?''

"Nothing important,'' said Hermione quickly, who did not plan on sharing what she had done to her parents with anyone besides Harry, Ron, and Ginny, "I just... how do we know when our first meeting with Professor Bellavita will be?''

"Letters with your appointment times have been placed in your dormitory,'' replied McGonagall, who was now looking quizzically back at her but did not question her motives.

"Thank you!''

Hermione rushed to find her new dormitory, and as she took the usual stairs to the Gryffindor common room, she realized that while the pathways looked the same from the inside, the view from the windows was different than usual along her path. The castle had molded and reshaped itself to fit its new rooms and hallways, and as she looked out the windows she realized she was headed for the South tower, one of the four main towers of the castle that they had seen on their way in. She found the portrait of the Fat Lady, where the prefects, Ginny and Dennis, were teaching the first years the new password. Hermione continued onwards, knowing that her room should be just ahead somewhere, and came across a stairway, leading up and outdoors.

She climbed the stairway with a giddy sort of delight, forgetting momentarily about the Pensieve and marvelling at the Weather Stabilization enchantments that allowed her to feel as if she were inside but look directly up at the real stars.

The stairway spiraled up the outside of the tower, and as she completed a round, she spotted a pale figure climbing an identical stairway around the North tower. Malfoy, alone as she was. She wondered if he was missing his parents as much as she was missing hers. Then she shook her head and climbed one more round of stairs before she came to a circular landing. Around the tower on this level were four doors, equally spaced around the tower, one with Harry's name on it, another with Ron's, a third with Dean's, and finally one that bore her name. She pushed it open and felt a tingle that she recognized as an Intentionality Shield, allowing only those with good intentions to open the door.

 _Too easily surpassed by a bit of Occlumency_ , she thought, and made a mental note to read up on locking charms as she entered her bedroom.

It was a simple room with a bed, a desk, a bookcase, and a small bathroom to the side. There was a large mirror on the back wall, and her window opened to look over the rest of the castle to the north... Yes, she could get used to this.

On her pillow was a letter:

_Miss Granger,_  
  
_Your appointment with Professor Bellavita in the Room of Recovery is scheduled for Tuesday at 10:00 PM. Please be prompt._


	7. Giovanni Bellavita

"Ah, come in-a, come in-a, Dray-co Mal-foy!" Giovanni Bellavita's slightly raspy Italian accent welcomed him into his appointment in the Room of Recovery. Malfoy winced at the overt cheerfulness of the short, muscular Italian wizard in front of him.

Draco simply glared back. "Professor," he sneered finally with the tiniest of nods. He was dreading the prospect of showing anyone any of his recent memories. They mostly involved Dementors and torture and kicking his father in the face.

"Call me Giovanni, young man!" and he clapped Draco on the shoulder, grabbed his hand and firmly shook. "Dray-co, Dray-co, let's see here, it was Azkaban for you, yes-a, yes-a, I've been thrown in there for a time," he chuckled.

"For what?" Draco asked in amazement, suddenly less guarded in spite of himself.

"Ah, bad deal, lost out on some bets, needed the mon-ey, got mixed up-a with the smuggling of the illegal Po-tions, worked for _Los Stregones Nero del Mago_ \- the Black-a Magic Sorcerers' Society of Italy - and we all got rounded up in a raid one day I was-a visitin' my buddies in London. Ah, to be young again!"

He was grinning as he recalled all of this, and gestured to the Pensieve. "Want to see, Dray-co?"

This was not at all what Draco had expected. Somehow, he had envisioned the Room of Recovery appointment to be a touchy-feely therapy session with a Muggle-loving Ministry official, not a fascinating introduction to the workings of a Pensieve with a professor who was unabashedly sharing his his own dark past. "Yeah!" he replied.

Giovanni said, "Now, watch-a closely, I'm-a going to focus entirely on a certain memory, and-a feel where my eyes move naturally as I remember it," he said, "Then, I'll point-a my wand at the opposite point on my head from where my eyes are pointing, and think-a _Mens Complecto_. If you're-a focused, the memory should ease out into your wand, like so!" and he pulled a white silvery memory from his mind, lowering it into the Pensieve. "Shall we?"

He pushed him heartily into the Pensieve, and Draco watched a short memory unfold of several short, muscular wizards sitting around a table in the corner of a dingy-looking bar, seemingly making a deal in Italian. He was soon released from the memory and found himself standing in the room again, watching the professor return the memory to his mind.

Draco always wanted to know exactly how things worked. Knowledge was power, after all. "Where did we go, Prof- I mean, Giovanni, when we went into the Pensieve? Were we standing here the whole time?"

"No no no no no, the physical body gets-a thrown right in as well as the mind, my friend, Dray-co," said Giovanni, "This Pensieve is larger inside than it appears on the outside. Now! You're turn! Think of a memory, any memory!"

Draco tried hard to think of something that did not involve the last three years or so of his life. He settled on the memory of playing tag with Louise in his childhood, which he had clung to in Azkaban, his last carefree childhood memory... He thought " _Mens Complecto!_ " and a silvery wisp of smoke attached itself to his wand. He flicked it into the Pensieve and watched the memory along with Giovanni.

"Eccellente, my man!" Giovanni cried, clapping him on the shoulder again. "Now, _Mens Complecto_ again to pick it up, and return it to your mind." Draco found it easy to do. "You're all set!"

They shook hands again, this time with Draco returning the shake, and feeling relieved that nothing else had happened. As he left the Room of Recovery, he ran into Hermione Granger anxiously awaiting her appointment, clutching a roll of parchment. He found a jolt of an undefinable emotion sweeping through his system, remembering her defense of his actions at the trial, and he wanted to say something to her - a thank you, perhaps? She looked up at him and smiled, also seemed to be about to say something, and then glanced down at his left arm and quickly looked away.

Of course, the damn Dark Mark. It was like he was carrying a plague. Even the little Slytherins seemed to glare at him when he rolled up his sleeves, and the older students actively tried to hex or de-robe him in the hallway. Giovanni Bellavita was the first person since his release who had not looked at him like that, he realized. He clutched his arm defensively and stormed off towards the new Slytherin tower, climbing the spiral staircase as the Weather Stabilization Enchantments repelled the rain and hail that was now pouring down on the castle. Thunder rattled his windows, and he threw himself down on his bed and fell into an uneasy sleep filled with nightmares of little Louise being tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange, of Hermione Granger morphing into a hooded figure and giving his mother the Dementor's Kiss.

It was going to be a long year.

* * *

Hermione had found Giovanni Bellavita to be surprisingly charming during their session, talking with her about the Muggles in his life while skillfully not asking anything about herself. She had asked him enough about the Pensieve to determine that, to her relief, it hadn't been modified or tampered with since being taken out of the Headmaster's office. The Pensieve was now available for checkout - to reserve a block of time in the Room of Recovery on your own, students simply had to block out a time period anonymously on an Un-Tamperable List on the side of the door.

She reserved a few time slots and tried a number of spells and tricks to find the memory she was hoping she had stored in there, but the easy ones didn't work, as she expected. She would need to spend time with the book _Cracking the Pensieve_ , which she was thrilled to see that she had apparently checked out of the library sometime during her 6th year.

However, between classes, homework, spending time with Ron and Harry, and caringly soothing the numerous orphaned younger students in the Gryffindor Common Room before bed in the evenings, Hermione was finding it difficult to find time to work on the mystery of her parents' memories.

"Hey Hermione, want to go into Hogsmeade with me and Harry and Ginny tomorrow?" asked Ron one Friday. "It's amazing being free to go whenever we want! I love being an adult."

Hermione laughed at that. "Well..." she started, feeling guilty and wondering whether she was spending enough quality time with Ron lately, "I really wanted to read about the Pensieve a bit more..."

"Oh, right, yeah," said Ron, sounding a bit disappointed. "Well, that's important..."

She sighed. "You know what, I'll come into Hogsmeade with you guys and bring the book, but after an hour or two I'll go to that new coffeehouse, Bugby's Bean, and get in some reading."

Ron perked up, looking glad he wouldn't be single for the entire double date. "Hermione, you work too hard," he said, but he was smiling.


	8. Cruciatus Recanto

Draco couldn't handle it, the glares from the other students, the loneliness, the constant watching his back.

The only student who had said a civil thing to him so far was Potter, of all people, who had stuck out his hand one lunchtime like the righteous, arrogant prat that he was and said `Let's start over, shall we? I'm Harry Potter.' He had rolled his eyes and ignored the Hand of Pity that was thrust in his face. `I'm Draco Malfoy, and I don't need _you_ ,' he snapped back. Potter had shrugged and went back to the Gryffindor table, and Draco vowed to never admit to anyone how much that little gesture of kindness had meant.

Desiring nothing more than to get out of the castle, Draco paid his Ministry guard to accompany him to Hogsmeade on the weekend, and found himself sitting in Bugby's Bean, working dilligently through his Potions homework. Academic achievement, he had decided, that's where he'd start for this new second chance everyone was so determined to give him.

 _Speaking of academic achievement_ , he thought to himself as the door to the shop opened and Hermione Granger flounced in, clutching a large book and sitting down at the only empty table left in the small shop. After a long while of poring over her book, she suddenly looked up and noticed him, and he glared at her, daring her to wince in the direction of his left arm again. To his surprise, she simply smiled at him sadly and returned to her book.

Learned her lesson, then. Good.

Eventually she left, meeting the Freckle-faced Weasley at the door.

The next two Saturdays followed the same pattern, and by the third weekend Draco found himself watching the door for her arrival, looking forward to seeing one of the few students who didn't glare at him. They had even partnered in Potions one Wednesday, and had worked together surpringly companionably. And each Saturday, she smiled at him, sat down at a table, and set to work reading a gigantic book.

The fourth Saturday, he was working in Bugby's again, parchment sprawled over a large table with four chairs, his long legs resting on the chair opposite him, when Granger walked in again. There were several other people in the shop, including Draco's guard sitting in the corner, and after she ordered her coffee she looked around, only to realize that all the smaller tables were taken. She looked directly at Draco and seemed to be struggling with a decision, before finally approaching him.

"May I sit here?"

Draco smirked and gestured to the chair furthest from him at his table. It was satisfying to see a Gryffindor unsure of themselves for once. And it felt good to smirk. It was the closest thing he'd had to a smile in at least four months.

Then Granger had to go and beam at him and exclaim `Thank you!' as she sat down. He tried to scowl through the guilt he suddenly felt. Why in the name of Merlin's beard was _she_ thanking _him_?

"You got me off with only three months in Azkaban, Granger, the least I can do is offer you a chair."

He hadn't meant to say that, he hadn't really been ready to thank her, even in a sarcastic manner, after seven years of mutual hatred. His heart was suddenly pounding in his ears as he continued to unsuccessfully attempt a scowl. He felt her looking at him as he resolutely returned to his Transfiguration notes, and eventually she opened her book and began reading through page after page as he breathed a sigh of relief. _You coward_ , he scolded himself.

They worked together at the table in silence for several hours. Dusk was falling, and still Granger read furiously through the book, which Draco stole a glimpse at and found that it was _Cracking the Pensieve_. Not study for class, then, so what was she searching for? She was glancing up at the clock on the wall with increasing frequency until finally she shoved the book away from her on the table and put her head in her hands. Her robe sleeves fell down, revealing the word _Mudblood_ etched in a permanent scar on her left forearm, the work of his dear late aunt Bellatrix Lestrange.

Draco's heart hammered in his chest again as he remembered that night. Did she know the full extent of what he did that night, the night his world turned upside down? Probably not, but she probably wouldn't believe him if he told her...

 

_It was late afternoon, and Draco was following his father back from the woods behind his house after their meeting with the Animagus, Drake Leatherback, who was currently hiding in tortoise form but had agreed to discuss terms on which to join the ranks of the Death Eaters. The meeting had gone well, Lucius making use of his great fortune with which to tempt and bribe those with Pureblood sympathies._

_As they approached the stream crossing, there was a rustling sound behind a tree to their right, and Lucius used some swift dark magic with his borrowed wand to capture the eavestropper: a beautiful Muggle girl of about sixteen stood before them, her arms bound to her sides by thick black ropes. "How...? What...? Who are you? Who was that turtle man? Let me go!" she began to struggle, and looked at Draco, a frightened hint of recognition in her eyes._

_Draco was trying to remember where he had seen her before when, before he could do anything, his father yelled "Avada Kedavra!" with a great bang and a flash of green light. The girl fell limply to the ground, her dead body rolling into the stream. And then he remembered. No, it couldn't be..._

_It was Louise. The little Muggle girl he used to play with in these very woods... he hadn't seen her in eight years, and now he was staring into her wide empty eyes in the stream that he had once fallen into himself so long ago. "You're IT!" came a sickening thought from the back of his mind, and he was shaking, speechless, as he followed his father across the stream and out of the woods..._

_"What did you kill her for!?" he finally exploded when they reached the pond. "You could have just wiped her memory, that's what we usually do!"_

_"Draco, the Dark Lord has commanded that we kill any Muggle who stands in our way, and it would not do to go against his wishes until we are back in his good favor! Their blood does not count for anything, do you understand?"_

_"I hate you," hissed Draco, and bent over to vomit into the bushes on the side of the pond. Lucius raised his wand as if to curse his son, but then lowered it and simply looked defeated as he watched him heave and retch. Eventually he stood up, and the pair walked back to the manor in icy silence as dusk approached._

_Just before they reached the back entrance, he saw his mother running towards them, her eyes wide._

_"We might have Potter! Draco, come quick, we need you to identify him."_

_Draco felt as if the world was spinning. Potter, captured? The Dark Lord fulfilling his end of the prophecy, and ruling over the Wizarding world? Himself and his father being forced or coerced into killing more Muggles in cold blood? Power, yes, he had wished for power for himself and his family and the Pureblood wizarding race, but not like this... this wasn't power, this was helplessness..._

_He reluctantly followed his mother and looked at Potter's swollen face, stalled for time as much as he could, numbly, not knowing what he even wanted, Louise's dead eyes haunting his every move. And then Aunt Bellatrix was torturing his mudblood classmate Hermione Granger, going far beyond the usual Cruciatus curse, etching words into her very skin..._

_Draco saw, out of the corner of his eye, through the crack in the door. Her blood dripped red._

_And Draco felt his own blood boil over with rage as he realized he had been lied to. Lies, all lies! The Mudblood's blood is red, he repeated in his mind as he stared in shock... The Mudblood's blood is_ Red _... He listened to Granger scream from the adjacent room, and he knew that Bellatrix was not holding back. He had seen her like this before - she would torture her subject until they relented the information she wanted, and then keep torturing them until they were hollowed out shells of their former selves._

_He thought of Louise and her empty, dead stare, and Draco made a choice._

_He pointed his wand through the crack in the door and whispered "_ Cruciatus Recanto _" over and over again. The screams continued, but he hoped that the countercurse would be enough to save Granger's life and possibly her sanity. He was not brave enough to speak out in protest, not when the Dark Lord himself might be called at any moment... but he was brave enough to do this, and he whispered the words until it was over..._

 

He was now looking at the same woman, Hermione Granger, sitting opposite him in Bugby's Bean with her head in her hands. His pounding heart calmed as he made a decision.

Draco stood up and packed his things, and as Granger looked up at him he walked over to her side of the table, he took out his wand and conjured a silvery white flower from thin air. He lowered it onto her open book.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, "for what my aunt did to you at Malfoy Manor." Their eyes met for a brief moment, and then he swept from the room, the Ministry guard at his heels.

* * *

Hermione felt Stunned as she watched him leave. She had been getting tired from her determined reading, frustrated that she had not found anything of use yet, knew that it was nearly time to meet Ron, Harry, and Ginny again. She had put her head in her hands to hide her face from Draco Malfoy as flashbacks from the war threatened to surface in her mind. Images of the Battle of Hogwarts, her parents' Obliviated faces, Bellatrix's maniacal cackle, Lupin and Tonks' dead bodies flashed in front of her closed eyes...

Then Malfoy had stood up at just the right moment and expressed his sympathies, as if that wasn't strange enough in itself. She knew he didn't use Legilimency, she would have felt it --- but she wondered if he was also remembering some of the horrors of the war in that moment. After testing it for jinxes, she picked up the flower and spun it in her fingers, thinking, and a single petal fell slowly to the open page.

Looking down at the page, she did a double-take as she saw the words, and read them twice, three times.

"Harry! Ron!" she yelled as she ran down the streets of Hogsmeade to meet Ron, Harry, and Ginny as they approached. "I think I've found it!"


	9. A New Riddle

The four of them sat in Harry's new room in Gryffindor tower as Hermione read aloud the page on Cryptospells for Pensieves. Harry and Ginny were curled up together on his bed, and Ron sat next to Hermione on the floor, his arm around her as he stared at the Quidditch posters on Harry's wall.

"I just _know_ this is what I would have done! A cryptospell is perfect, it requires a password to get past, it's probably still in the Pensieve, it's very hard to detect unless you know that you're looking for something... What do you think my password might have been?"

"Ron Weasley?" suggested Ron, and Hermione pushed him playfully.

"Harry Potter?" guessed Ginny. "I'm serious!" she said, "he's the whole reason you protected your parents, right?"

"How about the name of one of your favorite books?" Harry suggested. " _Ancient runes_? _Hogwarts, a History_...?"

"Stop, stop, stop!" exclaimed Hermione, getting up so fast that Ron nearly fell over backwards, "We can't just guess like this, there's got to be some word that is safe enough that no one would guess... of _course_! Voldemort!"

There was a surprised silence as Ron flinched at the name. "Your password is _Voldemort_?" repeated Harry.

"It's the only word that no Death Eater would ever say!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands together, thrilled to find a pattern among her own clues. "They call him the Dark Lord, and others call him You-Know-Who. So when I made this password, the only people in the world who would have a chance at accessing the memory would have been Harry, Dumbledore, myself, and a few other members of the Order!"

"I think the Pensieve's reservation hours end at ten," said Harry.

"Perfect, that's in 15 minutes, I'll head down there then," Hermione said, checking her watch.

"I'll go with you," said Ron protectively, "Don't want that crazy old new caretaker witch hexing you on your way down."

"I'll go too," said Harry, and he suddenly looked at Ginny, an odd expression on his face.

Ginny kissed him and smiled. "You guys go on without me, I understand. The world wouldn't be right without you three running around solving mysteries once in a while, would it?"

Harry grinned at her and pulled her closer, and Ginny added, "Just so long as you always come back in the end."

"Always, Gin," said Harry, as Hermione beamed and Ron made a face.

Hermione picked up _Cracking the Pensieve_ and a gleaming white flower fell out. She caught it and hastily returned it to the book. Ron and Harry hadn't noticed, but Ginny was looking at her with one eyebrow raised. _Later_ , mouthed Hermione, and Ginny nodded.

* * *

Harry, Ron, and Hermione made their way down the confusing new passageways to the Room of Recovery, only to find that it was locked after hours. Hermione thought she saw a pair of checkered stockings slipping out of view down the hallway, and wondered fleetingly if Alexa had locked it on them just now, making a mental note to find out who she was and why she was at the trial.

" _Alohomora_ ," said Harry, and Ron pushed on the door. Nothing happened.

"Oh, bugger," said Hermione, and she tried a complicated sequence of anti-lock jinxes until the door glowed red and the lock fell open. "Must be to catch younger students who might be out at night," she said, though Harry was looking down the hall and Hermione knew he had seen Alexa's stockings as well.

She sealed the door behind them with an equally complicated series of locking mechanisms, and approached the Pensieve where Harry and Ron stood waiting.

"Ladies first," gestured Ron, and Hermione dived in, followed by Ron and then Harry.

It was strange, being in a Pensieve with no memories at the ready --- it was simply an experience of blankness. Hermione concentrated hard and said " _Narcissium Oblivius Revelio_ ," and a shimmering image of herself appeared in front of her. "Password?" asked the image-Hermione.

"Voldemort," she replied, and the three of them found themselves tumbling into a memory.

The memory consisted of a sixth-year Hermione speaking to herself in the mirror in Myrtle's bathroom. "Ah, so you've found the decoy memory! Well done. Yes, a reasonable answer to the riddle of where Purebloods would never dare go, especially if the riddle is _Tom_ Riddle and the Pensieve is in Dumbledore's office.

"However, there is a better answer, and if it's me, Hermione, who is watching this memory, listen closely as I'll give you another clue:

_The answer can be found in the Northern sky._ "

The memory ended, and Hermione was left with a mixed feeling of disappointment and pride in the way she designed the clues to be just difficult enough so that she could solve them, but only with time and patience. She slowly returned the unlocked memory into her mind as Harry and Ron looked at each other, baffled by the new clue.

* * *

"So," said Ginny, marching into Hermione's room and flopping down on her bed on Sunday morning. "The white flower. Who's the secret admirer?"

Hermione stayed facing her desk and raised her eyebrow. "My door was locked, Ginny, usually that's a sign to knock," she said in mock scolding tones.

"Are you kidding?" Ginny grinned. "With you, if Alohomora actually works it means 'please come talk to me!' So here I am. Who is it?"

Hermione smiled and turned around. "You're never going to believe me..." Hermione bit her lip. "But the flower's from Draco Malfoy."

Ginny was so surprised that she forgot to be silly. " _Malfoy_?"

"Yes, we were working together in Bugby's Bean on Saturday, I mean, just sharing a table because there was nowhere else..." she added at Ginny's scandalized face. "And at the end, as he left, he apologized for the way Bellatrix tortured me, and conjured me this." She gestured to the flower, which was lying across on the top of her small bookshelf. "Tested it for jinxes and everything... I think he was really genuine."

"Well then, apologizing for _torture_ , doesn't that just make him a saint," said Ginny sarcastically.

Hermione laughed. "But still, for Malfoy, that's, I mean, he's come a long way, don't you think?"

"I wouldn't get too friendly. Harry tried to shake his hand and offer to start over or something, and Malfoy just ignored it and said something annoying, like he usually would."

Hermione stared at the flower, thinking for a moment. "Well, when you think about it, that's a pretty reasonable reaction. I mean, you know how Harry can be sometimes."

"A little tactless?" Ginny giggled.

Hermione nodded. "I'm going to give Malfoy a real chance, maybe talk to him a bit if I see him in that coffeeshop, away from school and everything, you know? Everyone's mean to him these days, and if he's isolated, I'm worried he'll just go back into his old Death Eater ways. I think we should _all_ give him a chance."

"Well, suit yourself, but I don't think your boyfriend's going to give him that chance."

"No, he probably won't," sighed Hermione.

"Did you tell him about the flower?"

"Who, Ron? No!... I mean, I know I _should_ confide in him, but Ron can be a bit..."

"Insecure?" suggested Ginny.

"Well, yes," said Hermione, and she sighed again. "But you're right, it's better to tell him up front that I'm planning to reach out to Malfoy as a friend, so that if he sees me talking to him he'll know that's all it is."

Ginny burst out laughing, and Hermione laughed along, though somehow she didn't feel that Ron's insecurities were all that funny.


	10. Extensio Momentus

Draco spent a good three hours working out with Giovanni Bellavita in the new Physical Training Room on Saturday morning, where Giovanni had been making the students do physical workouts as part of their Defense Against the Dark Arts homework. ("Magic is-a useful where magic is-a useful, but sometimes you just gotta know when-a to punch and when-a to duck!" he had said the first week, and the class laughed. "This-a class is gonna be puttin some meat on all your little twiggy bones. So when you do punch, it's gonna _count_!")

Levitation-assisted pullups, thick-air swimming, broom hops, randomized-weight bench press... the fitness room even had special equipment designed for exercises to improve wizards' ability to channel their own magical powers. With Draco being too old to be on the Slytherin Quidditch team, Giovanni turned out to be a good weekend workout buddy, and pushed him to new physical limits each week.

Draco was dripping with sweat as he made his way back to his room. He showered off and checked out his appearance in the mirror. The bags around his eyes were a little less heavy, his skin returning to its usual shade of pale rather than the yellow-gray it became in Azkaban. New muscles seemed to be rippling down his back, chest, and arms, and he was feeling somewhat more confident as he donned his cloak, sent an owl to summon his guard, and started out down the steps.

He saw the new old caretaker, Alexa W... whatever her last name was, creeping down one of the skybridges towards Gryffindor Tower, and thought again of Granger and the trial, finding himself hoping that she would make it to Bugby's Bean unscathed.

 _Wham_! Suddenly his leg dropped straight through the staircase, not far from the landing that led to the Slytherin Common Room, and he caught himself backwards with his hands on the previous stair up. A gang of Slytherin fourth-years guffawed as he struggled up and quickly casted a shield charm to repel their idiotic jinxes. He then carefully tested each remaining stair on his way down, and he wondered with a stab of fear whether it was him, not Hermione Granger, that was Alexa's target after all. " _Reparo_ ," he growled at the stair, and it molded itself back into place.

* * *

"Why don't you just work somewhere else?" Ron was complaining as he and Hermione got ready to go for their usual Saturday outing.

"I _told_ you, Bugby's Bean is a great place to work, it lets me get away from everything and focus," replied Hermione.

"It doesn't help you get away from _Malfoy_ though," said Ron, "And you should be careful around him. He's a Malfoy, there's no way he's changed, it's in his blood."

"I don't need you to look after me, Ron, I thought we'd settled this!" Hermione retorted. "And listen to yourself, talking about personality traits being determined by someone's blood!"

Ron just looked at her in confusion.

"Oh _honestly_!" she exclaimed, not bothering to explain the analogy. "I am going to Bugby's again on the usual schedule because if you haven't remembered, that's where I figured out the last clue, so it's obviously a good place to work on these things. And if you don't want me spending time alone with Malfoy, you could join me and _help_ , you know!"

He looked guiltily at his shoes and mumbled something about not wanting to slow her down. Just then Harry and Ginny poked their heads around the door. "Ready to go? I was thinking we could fly down today, it's a great day for flying," said Harry, grinning and tossing Hermione a broom.

Ron grabbed his broom moodily, and the four of them walked out and launched themselves from Gryffindor tower, streaking into the air and turning towards Hogsmeade.

It was an enjoyable enough morning, but Hermione found herself itching to sit down and think about the new clue. Homework, news about Death Eaters being captured, and everything else had again bogged her down during the week, and she decided Saturdays would be a good day to set aside regular work on retrieving her parents' memories.

Finally Ron, Harry, and Ginny decided to do some flying, and Hermione hurried to Bugby's. To her slight disappointment, Malfoy was not there, so she sat down at the large table they were at last time and pulled out some notes and books, including _Northern Magic_ , _Bewitching the Skies_ , and _Astronomy through the Ages_. The answer can be found in the Northern sky, she thought. What could that mean? Was it a place in the north, or in the clouds, that Purebloods would be afraid of? Somewhere that strips you of your magical powers, or of your right to inheritance?

She was completely absorbed in a section on the magical significance of the North Star when the door swung open and Malfoy walked in with his guard behind him. His walk was starting to return to his old strut, she noticed with disgust, and had to remind herself that she was giving him a chance. Strutting was not a crime in itself.

There were plenty of other tables open to sit at, but Malfoy walked slowly towards her. She saw his confidence visibly falter out of the corner of her eye as he approached.

"May I?" he gestured to the same chair he was sitting in the last week.

Hermione looked up and smiled. "You protected our identities from Bellatrix and the others at the Manor, the least I can do is offer you a chair."

Malfoy smirked at the reference, but his eyes looked relieved. He took out his Potions book and flopped down into the chair. Hermione went back to reading. About an hour passed in silence, and she was deep in thought when Malfoy's voice made her jump.

"Not the library these days, Granger?" he asked her without looking up from his papers.

"Oh - no, _everyone_ wants my time when I'm in there, always asking me for homework help," she replied, also not looking up. "And the Gryffindor common room is even worse. Even if I'm in my room these days they'll still come up and bother me."

Malfoy nodded in understanding, and Hermione felt him staring at her. She looked up. "How about you? Why do you come here on the weekends?"

"Nice reprieve from watching my back all the time," he drawled. "If you haven't noticed, half the school's out to get me for being a Death Eater, and the rest are out to get me for not being a good enough Death Eater. Can't win, so I come here."

He paused. "Why aren't you?"

"Why aren't I what?"

"Out to get me."

Hermione laughed, then shook her head. "Believe me, if Harry, Ron, or I thought you were any danger at all, we'd have you locked up," she said, and looked down at her books, her expression turning serious. "And in any case, I have... more important things on my mind right now."

Malfoy frowned and squinted at her books, then shrugged and went back to his own work.

It was kind of nice, having someone to mostly ignore and to be mostly ignored by. Everyone else - Ron, Harry, the reporters, the younger students, the teachers, everyone - seemed to need her in some way, draining her of her energy and resources. And being completely alone, left to her own flashbacks of the last year, was equally draining. But having someone sit with her and ignore her, that was exactly what Hermione needed right now.

The sky was darkening, and she glanced at the clock. She knew Ron would be coming to pick her up soon, and yet she felt as if the answer was so close... something was nagging at the back of her mind, something obvious, probably, that she was missing...

She groaned, wishing she still had a Time-turner. "Ever wish you could stretch out time?" she asked aloud.

Malfoy looked up with a burning, haunted look in his eyes. "I can do that," he said slowly.

Hermione stared back with sudden rapt interest. "How? You mean there's a spell?"

"In a manner of speaking," he said, twirling his wand in his fingers. Then he reached his left hand out across the table so that his Dark Mark peeked out from under his cloak. "Take my hand, I'll show you."

Hermione's heart started pounding in anticipation. She looked around, seeing Ron approaching from a distance outside the window. _It could be Dark Magic_ , she thought, and hesitated, looking at the hand offered to her. Malfoy rolled his eyes.

"Take it, I can't hurt you with Mr. Ministry sitting right behind us," he nodded to his guard.

Fair point. Curiosity getting the better of her, she placed her fingers in his.

"Now, don't try to force sudden movements when time slows down, it'll give you whiplash in real time." She nodded. Malfoy swirled his wand around them. " _Extensio Momentus!_ "

And suddenly everything slowed down - the clock on the wall was ticking at half, maybe a fourth of normal speed... no, even slower. Hermione tried to look around and found herself naturally moving slowly, the blinking of her eye taking an age to close and then open again, a minute or so passing before she turned her head enough to see Ron in the distance, moving towards her with all the speed of a Vanishing Twilight Snail, and then another minute passing before her eyes met those of Draco Malfoy again. The sound of running water, as an elf washed dishes in the back room, splashed low, sonorous, drawn out. Her heart beat ever so slowly, breath hardly whispering past her lips.

She saw that he had slowly moved his wand to point at their joined hands, and suddenly she felt - no, heard? - no, felt, Malfoy's thoughts traveling up her arm and into her mind.

_'Can you hear me? Send your thoughts back along the link at our hands.'_

_'Yes!'_ tried Hermione. _'Is this working?'_

 _'Excellent, yes, very good. This is a common Death Eater spell pairing. Slow down time and then communicate via weak-Legilimency. You can have a whole conversation in passing on a busy street, and no one would ever know.'_ Hermione's fingers tensed slowly at the mention of Death Eaters. _'Oh come on, just because Death Eaters use it doesn't mean it's inherently evil. Lighten up, Granger.'_

Hermione took in the experience as fully as possible, fascinated by the new phenomenon, reflecting on the oddness of sharing an extended moment with her former enemy.

 _'I suppose this could be really useful in battle, slowing things down to see what's going on around you and react appropriately,'_ she sent.

_'Yes. Actually, a better way to think of it is that you're speeding up your own thoughts. It feels like your thoughts are going at a normal pace and everything else is slower, because you experience time at the rate you think. But actually time is passing just the same and it's your thoughts that are going incredibly fast right now.'_

_'This is amazing!'_

_'Thought you'd like it. Just say 'Stop' when you want me to break the link and resume normal time.'_

She paused her train of thought to Malfoy, thinking private thoughts to herself without sending them along their linked hands.

_'You'd better not use this to get extra time on exams.'_

Malfoy's inner laugh came bursting through her arm to her mind.

_'Well, I'd never thought of that, but now that you mention it...'_

_'Don't you DARE,'_ she thought at him fiercely. _'I didn't give you a second chance at the Ministry just so you could blow it and cheat your way through life.'_

Malfoy paused, then sent her, _'Fair enough.'_ He slowed down time even further.

_'So it's just Extensio Momentus? Anything else involved?'_

It was terrifying to watch Malfoy's eyes darken ever so slowly. Malfoy's hand slowly gripped hers tighter, and she was surprised at how warm and strong his calloused hand felt in hers.

_'Don't try this at home, Granger. This drawn out moment, this extra time, this is being taken from the end of my life.'_

If she could have, Hermione would have gasped. Instead she settled on a slow blink and a raise of her eyebrows.

_'From the end of your life?'_

_'Well, it's like this, whenever you would die naturally of old age, assuming no one kills you before then or anything, you're taking time away from that end. They - the older Death Eaters - took a year from the end of my life and gave me the power to extend time for about that amount total. Part of the Death Eater initiation rituals.'_

_'That's... but that's... I thought Death Eaters were supposed to be trying to find ways of conquering death - extending life, not shortening it?'_

_'This... invention... started out that way. Rodolphus Lestrange, back when he was alive, was assigned the task of coming up with ways of extending the time that we experience, but he found that you could only push around the time and not add to it. This still has the advantage of adding to your youthful experiences and subtracting from your elderly years...'_ Malfoy paused, and ever so slowly shut his eyes tight. _'But of course, the Dark Lord figured out how to take from the end of others' lives instead of his own.'_

Hermione's heart thudded just once, loudly, slowly, painfully, as Malfoy continued, _'He never told anyone else how he did it. But I can only imagine how long he really lived, experience-wise...'_

He opened his eyes again, his thoughts broken off. She knew where his thoughts were heading even though he didn't send them through... given how many people he killed. Looking into Malfoy's stormy grey eyes, she saw sadness and regret, fear and anger.

_'Did it hurt? When they did this to you?'_

_'Seriously? You're experiencing a nearly frozen moment in time, learning about Dark Magic you've never heard of before, and you're wondering whether it hurt me?'_

_'Well, did it?'_

_'Yes. Happy?'_

_'No.'_ She didn't know what to think. _'Why are you wasting your precious time on me?'_

_'I don't know, why are you wasting my precious time? Not ready to see your boyfriend yet?'_

_'Shut up.'_

_'I'm not talking, I'm thinking.'_

_'Stop.'_

He blinked slowly as he recognized the safe word. Hermione could almost feel him sigh inwardly. In a different time he would have refused her request just to annoy her. But Hermione was a trained member of the Order of the Phoenix, and there was a Ministry guard waiting to throw him back in Azkaban at the slightest sign of trouble.

_'Resumen.'_

And suddenly the clock started ticking merrily on the wall, her heartbeat resumed its normal pace, her breathing returned to normal, and their hands let go. She studied the clock. It had only been about ten seconds of real time that she was hand in hand with Draco Malfoy, but in her mind it felt like several minutes.

* * *

Draco watched impassively as Granger hastily packed her things. He had obviously touched a nerve by mentioning Freckle-Face, which meant his suspicion had been true, and so there was no need to apologize. If she was angry, that was her problem.

She made to leave, then turned around and looked at him for a moment, as if trying to decide whether to yell at him or thank him. "See you here next Saturday?" she said finally, and he nodded, pleasantly surprised.

"Next Saturday, then," and he watched her go, watched her meeting Ron Weasley halfway down the block and kissing him before the two of them took off on their brooms. He opened and closed his left hand, still feeling where Granger's small but war-hardened fingers had been enclosed in his.


	11. In the Northern Sky

Draco couldn't sleep. It was a Friday evening, five weeks since he had been released from Azkaban, five weeks of blissful freedom from the Dementors, of simple things like classes and homework, and still the nightmares plagued him, the screams of those he tortured, Louise's dead eyes, the sight of one of his best friends, Vincent Crabbe, falling into the Fiendfyre... He woke up shaking after the last of his Sleeping Draught wore off. He would have to brew more tomorrow.

He donned his robes and walked outside onto the ledge, the Weather Stabilization Charms barely fogging a perfectly clear, crisp night. And yet he felt suffocated in the fake outdoors, desiring nothing more than freedom, wishing he could sleep in his bedroom at the Manor without paying a Ministry guard for the whole night...

Draco's gaze wandered south, as it so often did these days, to the eighth year rooms in the Gryffindor tower. It was amusing to watch the Gryffindor drama - Potter would often sneak the younger Weasley sister around the far side of the tower, presumably into his room. Dean Thomas often walked up the spiral staircase late in the evening, after spending most of his time in the Gryffindor common room. Granger could often be seen leaving Ron Weasley's room near midnight to tiptoe back into hers.

A light flickered as the door opened to Weasley's room and Granger stomped out. He followed her outside this time, and she turned around to shout something at him; they appeared to be having a row. Finally she slammed her door in Weasley's face, and Draco chuckled from his ledge on the North Tower.

He tried to suppress the feelings of desire bubbling up inside him; he knew full well that he was beginning to fancy Granger right now (a Muggle-born, of all people) only because, besides Giovanni, she was the closest thing to civil human contact that he'd had in the last four and a half months. And yet Draco's traitorous heart leapt as Granger's door opened again several minutes later. He saw her start towards Potter's room, change her mind, and turn to walk across the southern skybridge towards the Astronomy Tower.

Desire for human company fought with common sense until he found himself walking down the northern skybridge towards the same tower. He imagined how a conversation might go if he did meet her in the Astronomy Tower. _Oh, Malfoy, what are you doing here?_ his mental copy of Granger asked him in his mind. _Just looking at the stars, couldn't sleep_ , he rehearsed nonchalantly. _Neither could I_ , replied fantasy-Granger. _I didn't know you had an interest in Astronomy too!_

He shook himself out of the daydream, and up ahead he saw, to his dismay, that Granger was not stopping at the Astronomy Tower. She had turned west, towards the Ravenclaw tower. He sighed and continued on to the Astronomy Tower, figuring that maybe spotting a few constellations would help him get back to sleep.

"Hercules, Orion, Cassiopeia, Cygnus..." he recited in the Tower. Those were the easy ones. He looked south, connecting the dots in well-worn patterns in his mind. His eyes followed the great arch of the Milky Way to Saggitarius, the glowing heart of the galaxy, marveling at the infinity of it all, the sheer largeness of the universe and the absurd insignificance of his own miniscule place in it. _There must be magic out there, magic that we've never dreamed of..._ he started connecting the dots with his wand, etching the constellations onto the night sky with crisp bright lines of glowing mist.

* * *

Ron was being absurd. The bit of time-slowing magic that Malfoy had shown her last weekend hadn't hurt Hermione in the slightest, and he was a good working companion. _Why_ , after all these years, was Ron still so infuriating about who she could spend time with and how much time she spent on work? She spent _plenty_ of time with Ron. Plenty! Every bloody evening, in fact.

It was a perfectly crisp, clear night, and she gazed out her window into the northern sky. _Something obvious that I'm missing, I just know it_ , and her gaze fell on Malfoy, standing on the ledge of Slytherin tower, staring at the sky. She had half a mind to ask him for help with the riddle, but didn't want to annoy Ron even further until she talked things over with him in the morning.

She threw herself onto her bed, knowing that sleep wouldn't come. After tossing and turning for a few minutes, she got up and walked outside, heading instinctively towards Harry's room before she remembered that Ginny was staying with him tonight. She turned and was about to head back to her room when she saw a light on in Ravenclaw tower: Luna was awake. She could talk to Luna.

"Oh hello, Hermione," said Luna brightly when she opened the door. "I'm not surprised you're awake too, smoxmarxes tend to flit about on clear nights like this and make it difficult to sleep."

Hermione raised her eyebrows but forced herself to simply smile as the Ravenclaw oddball led her into her brightly decorated room. There was a large moving picture of Neville on her wall, who was serving a year helping the Auror office catch the remaining Death Eaters abroad.

"How is Neville, Luna? Do you get to see him much?"

"Every now and then, yes, he just came to visit last weekend," said Luna. "He didn't have much time, but he sends his regards. I do worry sometimes, but I've made him enough Luck Charms for this trip that everything should be all right." She smiled at Hermione. "You look troubled, though, is everything all right with Ron? And with Harry?"

Hermione grimaced. "Harry's fine. With Ron, somehow things are never quite all right, though I knew what I was getting myself into," she mused. "But that's not actually what's bothering me the most right now."

Luna nodded. "I thought not. I just thought I'd start the conversation by asking about something more mundane." Hermione laughed at that.

"You're good at riddles, Luna, can I ask for your help with one? I feel like I'm missing something obvious..."

"Oooh, sure, I love riddles!"

"OK," she said, "What is a place that no Pureblood would ever dare travel? The only hint I have is that the answer can be found in the Northern Sky."

Luna looked thoughtful for a moment. "Well, the Northern Sky isn't an actual place, since it depends on where you're looking from, and if you travel towards it, there's always more north you can go. Unless the answer is hidden in the atmosphere at the North Pole?"

"That's unlikely, though I'll travel there if there are no other options," said Hermione.

"Hmm, well in that case, what about a constellation in the Northern Sky? Maybe the answer is related to the names of one of those constellations."

Hermione nodded thoughtfully. "I was trying star names, nebulas, and the northern lights, but you're right, it might be a constellation instead. Let's see, the northern constellations are Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Cassiopeia, Draco...." her eyes grew wide. "Draco! He's a pureblood!"

"Draco Malfoy? Yes, that's true," thought Luna. "That's a curious clue. Do you think he might know the answer to the riddle?"

Hermione looked out Luna's window to see the outline of a tall, pale Slytherin standing in the Astronomy tower, whispering enchantments towards the night sky. "I think it's worth a try."

* * *

"Cepheus, Delphinus, Corona Borealis..."

He was putting the finishing touches on his favorite constellation, his namesake, a great dragon snaking its way through the night sky, when a familiar voice beside him made him jump.

"Draco."

"Grange... _Draco_?" he furrowed his brow. "Since when have you called me anything but Malfoy?"

"I was naming your constellation, though I suppose it's your name too," she replied with a wry smile.

Draco narrowed his eyes at her and made an exaggerated show of looking back up to the sky, connecting several tiny stars with his wand to draw a stick figure holding a book in one arm and the other hand raised high in the air. He gestured to his drawing. "Hermione."

She looked from Draco to his art and back to him again, then burst out laughing. "You know, that would have bothered me, once," she gasped. "But that... was actually really funny."

For the first time in four months - no, maybe two years - Draco smiled in earnest. "See, even we Death Eaters have a sense of humor."

He regretted his words instantly, and also felt a pang of annoyance as Granger flinched at the words _Death Eaters_ and became somber again. He felt increasingly on edge as she stuttered, "Dra- Malfoy, can... can I ask you something? There's a... sort of riddle... and I need to solve it..."

"I don't see why not," he glowered, stepping towards her and pulling up his sleeve to bare his Dark Mark, the skull and snake etched into his forearm seeming to glitter black in the brilliant starlight. "We Death Eaters are good at solving riddles."

"Stop that."

"Stop flinching."

"Fine. Are you going to help me or not?"

"Fine." He dropped his sleeve, glad she was finally looking him in the eye again.

She took a deep breath. "What's the one place a Pureblood would never dare travel?"

The answer came to him immediately, from the depths of his mind, and suddenly he was struck with the strongest flashback he had ever experienced... a Memory Block Charm, he recognized, had just released.... He saw through blurred vision that Granger had fallen over backwards, also suddenly gripped by the same memory...

 

  
_He was in the Room of Requirement, pacing back and forth through the piles of rubbish after hours of fruitless attempts at fixing the Vanishing Cabinet to let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts._ Think _, Draco,_ think _! What is it, what am I missing..._

_He whirled around when he heard footsteps in the room. An echo of his own steps? He paused... no, they were still there, small and light... but no one should be able to get in..._

_He followed the sound, and the footsteps stopped. The intruder had heard him too._ Potter _, he thought,_ I'll kill him this time, I really will...

_More footsteps, more cautious walking. Peeking around the large stack of books on magical methods of water-sanitation, he saw her. Granger. Almost as bad as Potter. He stepped out and aimed at her head. She couldn't know he was here._

_"Obliviate!"_

_"Obliviate!"_

_Their identical memory-erasing spells collided and ricoched off of each other, erasing images from picture frames, toppling books and ripping them open, words disappearing from the pages. So she didn't want him to know she was there, either. Interesting._

_"Stupefy!"_

_"Protego!"_

_"Petrificus totalus!"_

_"Impedimenta!"_

_They dodged and blocked each other's spells until both of them stood up, panting, and simultaneously shouted "Expelliarmus!" Their wands simultaneously flew out of each others' hands and into the others', and they both paused, each not daring to attempt to use the other's wand against them._

_"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" called Granger._

_"I might ask the same of you, Granger," he drawled, approaching her slowly. "No Potter and Weasley to back you up this time?"_

_"And no Crabbe and Goyle with you," she taunted back. "Scared without your bodyguards?"_

_He ignored her taunt and sneered at her. "I can't let you leave knowing I was in here," he growled, "No one can know."_

_"No one can know that I'm in here either," she said, glaring back, and he was suddenly burning with curiosity, wondering what secrets the goody-two-shoes Hermione Granger would be hiding. "So let's make a deal."_

_"I don't make deals with Mudbloods," he spat, but looked at her with interest, listening._

_"No, listen, we'll call it a draw and both... wait! This is perfect!" her eyes suddenly lit up as they always did when she knew the answer to a question in class. "We'll do a Memory Block charm on each other to block out memories of this meeting, but not before getting some information from each other. Not enough to know about this meeting, but something that will help each of us with... whatever it is we're trying to do. I'll help you if you help me."_

_Draco considered her offer. He_ could _ask her for help on how to fix a Vanishing cabinet - it would be exactly the kind of bookish question she could help with... He eyed her warily, wondering whether he could trust the Dumbledore ally in front of him to keep her end of the bargain. He looked down at the foreign wand in his hand._

_"We're holding each other's wands, let's seal the deal," he said, and Granger approached him, understanding. They whispered the incantation together to direct each others' wands to cast a Memory Block charm as their next command. They then stepped back, not yet swapping wands, neither trusting the other not to cast the spell before they had each gotten their information._

_"All right Granger, I'd say ladies first but, in your case, I wouldn't."_

_She rolled her eyes. "Just get on with it, then."_

_"I need to know how to fix a damaged Vanishing Charm that is breaking the things it Vanishes."_

_Granger raised her eyebrows, and for a fleeting moment Draco wondered if she was going to have nothing to offer. But then she responded, "Don't fix it, reset it. You have to remove part of the spell and then patch it with your own. Those things can be tricky, I agree."_

_He was stunned. Why hadn't he thought of that? "Right."_

_"My turn," she said. "I need to know where I can hide a memory that no Death Eater would ever find. Somewhere... somewhere a proud Pureblood would never dare travel to."_

_He narrowed his eyes at the talented, intelligent witch in front of him, studying the beautiful thick brown hair that framed her determined face, thought of the hatred and disgust he felt whenever he looked at the sheer... attractiveness of the Mudblood, the powerful allure that drew him in while her lowly status pushed him away. It was unfair, tempting and repulsive, and he hated Potter and Weasley all the more for accepting her... for_ having _her. And he knew the answer to her question. It was the same for any respectable Pureblood._

_Granger looked puzzled, then concerned as he approached her slowly, until their wands were held within inches of each others' chests. "That's easy, Granger. You know what repels those with Pureblood sympathies the most? People like you." She flinched, but held eye contact as he reached out and brushed a lock of golden brown hair out of her eyes. "Those rare Mudbloods that are actually clever, and talented, and compassionate" - he forced each word out with vile contempt - "that tempt Purebloods to stray from the duty that binds us to marrying our own kind."_

_Her eyes were wide and disbelieving now, and also suspicious. Draco laughed harshly and turned to the side, suddenly unable to face her. "I'm only telling you all this because we're going to block our memories. But the answer to your question is easy. The last place a Pureblood would ever dare travel is into a Muggle-born's heart."_

_Then she understood. "Of course! That's... that's perfect. Thank you."_

_They looked at each other in silence for a few moments before Granger spoke. "OK, when we do the Memory Block, hold on to your question and the answer in your mind. It's very hard to hold more than that, so focus hard on that and nothing else, and the block should work. It'll only lift if we ask each other the same questions at some point in the future."_

_They exchanged wands as she continued, "The Memory Block charm should confuse us enough that we'll naturally wander around a bit afterwards, so we should find ourselves somewhere else in the castle when we regain our senses fully, with only the memories we need."_

_He nodded, impressed. The little mudblood had thought of everything. "On the count of three," Draco commanded. "One... two... three..."  
_

 

Draco was breathing heavily, gripping a telescope for balance, as the memory rushed back into his mind. Hermione was getting to her feet. They stared at each other, overwhelmed by what the memory had held, the angry compliments Draco had bestowed and the inadvertent way Hermione had helped the Death Eaters' cause. Hermione fidgeted, then blurted, "Thank you!" and ran down the southern skybridge into the dark, starry night, her bushy hair bouncing behind her.


	12. Doors Unlocked

Hermione finally knew where the answer was. _In a Muggle-born's heart..._

Thankful that Ron and Harry were not awake to tease her about her library habits, she ran down the spiral staircase and into the main castle floors, taking a few wrong turns in her excitement before reaching the library and magically unlocking the door. " _Lumos!_ " she cried, and the light at the end of her wand tip seemed even brighter than usual.

She knew just the book, _Vials and Vapors, the Many Forms of Memory Storage_ , and she squealed aloud in the deserted library when she opened to the first page and saw that she had checked it out in April of her sixth year. She must have deleted the memory of it entirely, but she knew the book well enough to find the section she was looking for: "Memory storage in the heart."

* * *

" _Evanesco._ " Draco cleared his constellations from the sky and walked dazedly back towards his room. Stopping halfway across the skybridge, he hesitated. His mind was far too full of memories and Granger and nightmares and questions to sleep now. He wanted to talk to Giovanni, to his mother, to _someone_  who could help him sort through his own thoughts.

He turned and headed down towards the Room of Recovery. Maybe it was time to give the old Pensieve a try...

* * *

Vague, modified memories were coming back to Hermione in pieces as she read... of knowing the answer to the riddle and who helped her, of storing a single small memory inside her own beating heart. She remembered destroying her own memory of the answer and of Malfoy's involvement, leaving only a single memory with the Northern Sky clue inside Dumbledore's Pensieve.

 _It was all very well-done, if I do say so myself_ , she thought to herself as she turned the pages.

It didn't take her long to find what she was looking for. Exiting the library and re-locking the door, she hurried towards the Room of Recovery.

* * *

" _Mens Complecto_ ," Draco murmured in front of the Pensieve, and extracted several memories from his mind - the memory he had just recalled from sixth year, the memory of Granger being tortured by Bellatrix, memories of being forced to kill and torture Muggle-borns and blood traitors, his mother's lecture to him on the dangers of Muggle ways. He didn't know how he felt about Muggle-borns anymore - he would never again call them Mudbloods, for that was the biggest piece of skrewt dung propaganda he had ever foolishly bought into - and yet he did believe in the original Death Eaters' cause, the superiority of the Pureblood wizarding race...

Draco hesitated, knowing that it would be painful to relive these memories, but then dived in, hoping it would help him make sense of it all.

* * *

Hermione was so ecstatic over her discovery that she didn't notice that the locking mechanisms on the door to the Room of Recovery were a distinctly different style than the last time she had been there at night. She simply decoded the pattern and unlocked it, threw open the door and locked it quickly behind her with her usual layers of security.

The room was empty, and she stood in front of the Pensieve, pointed it at her heart, and concentrated hard on thoughts of the people she loved. Ron, Harry, Ginny, her parents... after several tries, finally her wand glimmered with the tip of a sparkling memory protruding from her chest. She took a deep breath and concentrated harder, thinking of Victor Krum and Mrs. Weasley and Professor McGonagall and Neville... and Harry and Ron, Harry and Ron...

Her chest tingling, she eventually extracted the entire memory. She lowered it into the Pensieve, her hands trembling in anticipation, not even noticing that there were already thoughts swirling in the basin, memories that were not her own...

* * *

As Draco stood inside the Pensieve, re-watching his encounter with Hermione Granger in the Room of Requirement in his sixth year, he felt he was being left with more questions than answers. What memory was she trying to hide in her own heart? What was so important that no Death Eater could ever know? And why was she trying to extract it now? At least now her furious read-through of _Cracking the Pensieve_ made more sense.

The memory ended and faded into the next, of torturing Amelia Wadsworth at Malfoy Manor. He watched himself trembling, the Dark Lord commanding that he give the traitorous Death Eater a taste of his displeasure for siding with a Muggle-born in a recent trial at the Ministry. Memory-Draco executed the command, trying to conceal his own fear and disgust from the Dark Lord. _I'm so glad he's gone_ , he thought, _this is not the answer_.

* * *

Hermione found herself unexpectedly watching the screams of a witch named Amelia Wadsworth, being tortured by Draco Malfoy as Voldemort stood by, coldly remonstrating the woman. Was this part of the memory she had hidden in her heart? _Amelia Wadsworth, of course!_ she thought as something clicked in her mind.

After a few seconds, however, the memory faded into something that she was expecting.

* * *

Draco knew immediately that the next memory was not his own. He watched as a memory-Hermione Granger spoke into a mirror. Had Hermione been down here before him? Did she leave this memory in the Pensieve?

 

 _"Excellent, future-Hermione, you found the memory! I knew you could do it, because, well, you're me. If you did need Malfoy's help, tell him I really, sincerely thank him. And also tell him that I think he's a coward and an idiot for joining the Death Eaters - I can't_ believe _Harry was right - and I hope he comes around eventually._

_"I have hidden the two memory orbs in a mirror." She tapped the mirror she was looking into. "You know the one. I spent a long time figuring out how to encase objects in their own reflections - it's a tricky bit of magic, and Dumbledore helped a bit, but I know you can figure it out again even w-without him." Her voice had started to shake, and she paused to wipe tears from her eyes. "So I'm going to delete my memories of how I did it, and let you figure it out again. If this actually works, probably years down the road, hopefully you'll be much better at magic by then anyway, and it won't take you very long."_

_She took a breath. "Our parents now believe their names are Horatio and Annabelle Goodwill, and they are setting up a new dental practice in Australia. I have closed Granger Dental for them, so no Muggles are suspicious. I have ensured that they have no idea they ever had a daughter. They shouldn't be hard to find in a Muggle business directory. I hope they're still there when you see this, and are safe and happy."_

_Then memory-Hermione started sobbing in earnest. "I m-miss them so much already, and I w-wish I could have gotten them guards like Harry's aunt and uncle, but-but I didn't want to use up any more of the Order's time and energy... Oh, I hope I did the right thing! I hope all this is w-worth it!"_

_She held her face in her hands for a moment before looking up, her eyes determined. "I'm off to help Harry hunt Horcruxes now, and if you're watching this, you better have destroyed every last one. I'm warning you, Hermione Jean." Then she laughed hysterically through her sobs and pointed her wand at her mind._

 

Draco had walked around to get a better look, and just as the memory was ending, he saw that memory-Hermione's reflection in the mirror was real-looking, in focus, staring back at him... the real Hermione Granger was inside the Pensieve too.

* * *

The memory faded as Hermione saw a pale face through the mirror in her own memory and realized what was happening. The previous memory, with Amelia Wadsworth, was Draco's, and she was inside the Pensieve with him, reliving each others' memories.

She and the real Draco Malfoy stormed over to each other in his memory-Manor as Bellatrix Lestrange began torturing her former self. Her own memory-screams split the air.

"What are you doing in here?" She demanded.

"If you hadn't noticed, Granger, the door was locked!"

"It's _always_ locked this time of night! How was I supposed to know you were in here!"

"Maybe Little Miss Brilliant could have noticed that there were memories inside the Pensieve before butting your know-it-all nose into my-"

" _My_ nose! You just stood there through my entire memory, you miserable little-"

" _I_ wasn't the one who-" but Malfoy's response was drowned out by an ear-splitting shriek of pain from memory-Hermione, and the two of them couldn't help but turn to look.

"Why in the name of Merlin are you replaying this? Get a kick out of watching Mudbloods scream?" Hermione demanded.

Malfoy then shook his head, looking ashamed. "Don't watch, Hermione, please. There's just this and a couple more short memories, and then it'll be over, I was just trying to-" he winced as another scream ripped through the memory-Manor, "I was just trying to sort out my thoughts." He actually seemed embarrassed.

"You just watched _my_ memory without my permission, so I should get to watch yours," she said, trying unsuccessfully to still sound angry. "Besides, this is my memory too, isn't it?" And yet she tried to look anywhere except at the torture happening before her. She looked at the portraits on the walls, the stained glass windows, the doorways...

Suddenly she spotted the faint trace of a charm that was being cast through a crack in a door. She approached it, seeing memory-Draco behind the spell, and looked back at the real Draco questioningly. He seemed frozen to the spot, an unreadable expression on his face. She looked more closely towards the door...

_"Cruciatus Recanto. Cruciatus Recanto. Cruciatus Recanto..."_

He was muttering the countercurse. Draco Malfoy was trying to save her life.

* * *

The few remaining scattered memories that Draco had pulled sloppily from his mind flashed before them briefly: of Louise falling into the stream, of Snape killing Dumbledore in his place, of the three times he had been Imperiused and forced to kill...

As the brief memory began of his third forced _Avada Kedavra_ , on the blood-traitor Elwin Dolohov, an older friend of Draco's from Hogwarts, he instinctively put his hands on Hermione's shoulders, turning her so that her horrified eyes faced his. "Please don't watch this one," he begged, and she nodded, shutting her eyes as memory-Draco attempted unsuccessfully to fight the Imperius and turn his wand around to point at himself instead, as his mother screamed in protest... Hermione was trembling and he pulled her closer, not knowing whether for her comfort or for his. If it was odd for a Death Eater to be holding a Mudblood in the middle of a Pensieve, neither of them noticed.

" _Silencio!"_ Memory-Voldemort's high, cold voice hissed, and memory-Narcissa's screams abruptly stopped.  " _Imperio!_ " he reiterated.

" _Av... Avada Kedavra,_ " came memory-Draco's lifeless, controlled voice, and a flash of green light surrounded them as Voldemort's high-pitched laughter filled the air...

Finally the memory faded, and they pulled apart. "Just one more short memory, and then we'll be out of here," said Draco, pressing his shaking hands together. "This one isn't bad..."

 

_A seven-year-old Draco Malfoy sat with his mother on an elegant loveseat in the Manor as she flipped through the alternative newspaper The Pureblood Post, a paper that had been recently outlawed but still circulated in secret among the anti-Muggle wizarding nobility._

_It was covered with photos of the recent Muggle wars, of starving Muggle children and bloody bomb sites, the blood all having been magically modified to a muddy brown color. Headlines such as "Twelve Wizards Killed in Iraq Bombing" and "Magical Vanishing of Muggle Nukes: Is It Safe?" were mixed in with "Dumbledore Accepts New Half-Breeds to Hogwarts," and "Fudge Risks Wizard Safety, Spills Magical Secrets to Muggle Prime Minister."_

_"Mother, I'm scared of muggles," said little memory-Draco, looking worried._

_"There's nothing to be afraid of, Draco, we'll keep you safe," replied the younger-looking Narcissa Malfoy, flipping the page of the newspaper. "That's a promise."_

_Draco snuggled closer to his mother. "But why are they so mean?"_

_"Because they don't have magic like us, and they hate us for it. That's why wizards went into hiding, and why we can't show muggles that we can do magic," she explained, running her fingers soothingly through his hair. "Some wizards, like Dumbledore, want us all to get along with muggles, because not all muggles are mean, some of them are nice. But history has shown that it is too dangerous. As strong as magic is, there are simply more muggles, and that means they can overpower us. And their bombs these days... we don't even know magic that can work against them."_

_"Why don't wizards just get muggle bombs?"_

_Narcissa laughed and squeezed her son. "It's very difficult, and we don't have the tools to construct our own bombs. But your father and a few others are working on more powerful Dark Magic that might eventually work. If we're powerful enough to take on any muggle opposition, we might finally be able to come out of hiding."_

_"Cool!" said Draco. "Can I learn Dark Magic?"_

_"When you're older." She went back to flipping through the pages._

_"Mother, I think I was playing with a muggle the other day, in the woods. I thought she was a witch at first. How do you tell if someone is a muggle?"_

_"At your age, kids are mostly the same," she said, "But once you're a couple years older you'll just know the difference. And at that point, you'll have to stop playing with muggles, ok?"_

_"Okay," he said quietly. Narcissa flipped through more pages and there was a long silence before Draco added, "I think she was one of the nice muggles."_

_"That's nice, son," muttered Narcissa, distracted by the newspaper._

 

Finally Draco and Hermione tumbled out of the Pensieve into the blissfully silent Room of Recovery. They stood up and both looked back into the Pensieve at the swirling mix of memories inside, neither quite able to look at the other. Hermione's wand was shaking in her hand, and Draco was gripping the edge of the basin.

Finally Hermione spoke. "Amelia Wadsworth," she said. "That's the name of the person you were torturing. Amelia _Wadsworth_."

"Wha- Yeah, so? Why, who is she?" Draco's knuckles turned white against the Pensieve.

"The new caretaker, Alexa... Professor McGonagall announced her as Alexa _Wadsworth_ at the feast. She must be Amelia's mother."

Finally, something made sense. "So that's why she's out to get me - and you, for defending me at the trial."

Hermione nodded, and they stood in silence for a few moments, still not looking at each other.

"So, how do we restore these memories then? How do we know whose is whose?" asked Hermione.

"I have no idea," said Draco, relaxing his hold on the basin and tracing the rim with his finger. "Maybe we should just destroy them in the Pensieve. We'll still know what we saw here today, even if the original memories are destroyed."

"So, we'll both remember what happened here today then." Hermione said it as a fact, but Draco knew it was a question.

He gave her a brief sideways glance. "You're really going to risk forgetting that, after all you went through to hide that memory? I couldn't care less about your muggle parents, you can rest assured I won't tell anyone what I saw."

Hermione bristled, but understood his implicit offer. "I'll only tell Harry and Ron what I saw." Again, it was a question.

"Those two?" he scoffed. "Fine, it's a deal, but only because they're too dim-witted to think of telling anyone else."

"OK then, let's do it."

They pointed their wands at the Pensieve and both muttered ' _Obliviate_ ', leaving only their second-hand memories of watching their own memories intact in their minds. Draco felt a small burden lift from his shoulders, knowing that he would never have to watch himself murdering others from his own point of view again. He sighed and closed his eyes.


	13. Locked Doors

Hermione needed to get away from the Room of Recovery and think about everything, _everything_ , that she had just seen. She quickly un-did her locking charms on the door, and pushed on the handle.

The door wouldn't budge. Hermione frowned and tried again. The door glowed orange, and still wouldn't budge.

"What locking mechanisms did you put on this? Are there any time-delayed ones?" she asked.

"No, you had to have unlocked all my protections in order to get in," said Malfoy, sounding annoyed. He joined her at the door and muttered a few charm revealing spells. "What in the name of Merlin... the door is magically locked from the _outside_."

"Alexa's work?" Hermione guessed, realizing that there would be no un-doing her usual enchantments from the wrong side of the door.

"Wouldn't put it past the old witch." He pounded his fist against the door. "So now what? I'm stuck in here with you all night?" Malfoy grumbled, turning and pacing towards the back of the room.

Hermione thought for a moment. "Well, we could always blast apart the wall..."

They finally looked at each other, each trying to suppress their own grin, until both of them burst out into awkward laughter. After all the horrors of the war, the destructive spells they cast under imminent threat of death, here they were thinking of blasting apart Hogwarts again just because they were temporarily locked into a school room.

Their laughter lasted a long time, and finally Malfoy slumped down on the hard wooden bench that lined the back wall of the Room of Recovery, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. "Someone's reserved this room for tomorrow morning, we'll be able to get out then." He checked his silver-green wristwatch. "It's already three in the morning, we don't have long to wait."

Hermione sighed and walked over to the wooden bench along the side wall. She pointed her wand at the bench and carefully Transfigured it into a simple brown couch, adding some Cushioning Charms for good measure. She laid down across the couch and started casting protective charms around herself.

"Don't trust me?" he smirked, tapping his wand against his hand in a mock threat.

"Not enough to fall asleep in the same room as you," she replied simply.

He shrugged and stretched out on his bench, not bothering to Transfigure it, his hands behind his head. Hermione stared at the ceiling, trying to ignore the Slytherin on the adjacent bench, tears coming to her eyes as her mind whirled with all the new memories...

"I can't _believe_ I helped you with that Vanishing cabinet, without thinking about why you might need to fix something like that," she choked out after a few minutes. "I helped Dumbledore die. It was because of me that Bill Weasley got bitten."

"The Weasleys are scum and the Wizarding world is better off without Dumbledore," came Malfoy's scathing reply. "You should be proud that you helped."

Hermione propped herself up on her elbows and glared at him, anger bubbling up inside of her. "And here I thought you were _worth_ giving a second chance! Did you learn nothing in Azkaban? I should have given you five years..."

"Don't believe me?" drawled Malfoy. "Dumbledore was the biggest Muggle sympathizer in Wizarding history. He tried to brainwash us here at Hogwarts with those Muggle-studies classes, teaching us how good Muggles are and how they're _equals_ to us... nonsense. Muggles and wizards are not equal. I've never seen a muggle perform so much as a _Wingardium Leviosa_."

"My _parents_ are muggles!" cried Hermione, sitting up. "And muggles may not have magic, but they have phones, and internet, and television, and cars..."

"Exactly! Cars. Look at cars. Those oil-spewing monstrosities are polluting the very air we breathe! People are _dying_ in Beijing and Delhi because they can't breathe the bloody air!" He tossed his wand into the air and caught it again. "The sea levels are rising, Granger, the Earth is heating up. They're killing us with their technology, all because they want to make fake magic of their own."

"Is this more of the rubbish they print in that _Pureblood Post_ paper? Muggles don't do all that because they're _evil_! Think about it, Draco. If you had no magical powers at all, and you had to go to work thirty miles away each morning without traveling by Floo powder, Portkey, Apparition, Broom, or Thestral, but someone offered you a ride by car, you're really telling me you wouldn't take it?"

"Not if it's destroying the air I breathe! It's madness..."

"Suppose you would starve if you didn't. Suppose you couldn't survive without that job."

"My one stupid magicless life isn't that important that-"

"Suppose your mother would starve if you didn't, then. Or your child. Or your grandchild."

Malfoy tossed his wand up higher in the air and caught it again, then twirled it in his fingers, staring at the ceiling. "I'd walk."

Hermione snorted. "You're pathetic." She flopped back down on the couch, rolling over to face the wall.

He got to his feet, walking towards her and jabbing his wand against the invisible barrier that Hermione had created around herself. The barrier glowed white and he snatched his hand back in pain. "Pathetic! What about _your_ grandchildren? Leaving them to a world of ash and heat and drought and famine? All because your parents wanted to sit on their fat lazy rears and travel by _burning gasoline_?"

Hermione didn't make any sign that she heard him, and Malfoy continued, pacing. "Wizards could fix this so easily. Portkeys are easy to make, and even muggles can travel by portkey. But we can't reveal ourselves, because the muggles would kill us, like they always do, and these days they wouldn't just burn us at the stake or hang us... they have nuclear bombs and missiles and biological weapons!

"So the only solution is to take away their destructive power without them knowing about it. Influence the muggle world leaders with the Imperius curse. Transfigure or Vanish all the nuclear weapons and stamp out terrorist organizations with a few well-placed _Avada Kedavra_ 's. But your beloved _Dumbledore_ was the one who started the movement to outlaw the use of Unforgivables on muggles. So here we are, watching our world burn."

Hermione heard him walk back to his bench and start to Transfigure it. She still lay facing the wall, not wanting him to know how much his words had affected her. After thinking for a long while, she rolled over to stare at the ceiling again.

"We can't magically cool the Earth back down, can we," she said slowly. "Gump's Fourth Law of Elemental Transfiguration. We can transfer energy or matter or heat from one place to another using magic, but we can't stop global warming with a flick of the wand."

"Ten points to Gryffindor, Miss Granger," Malfoy said mockingly, putting the finishing touches on his own Transfigured bench, which now was an ornate black-and-silver leather sofa with cold green flames dancing along its edges. "If only they taught basic science at Hogwarts, everyone would know this. But all your favorite Muggle-loving professors and Weasley spawn think it's more important to 'respect Muggle culture' and 'recognize their humanity' than to just take control and fix everything."

"Taking control isn't the answer, though."

"I know." Malfoy sighed and flopped down on his elegantly designed furniture, running a hand through his golden blonde hair. "That's what I've realized over the last two years. The Dark Lord offered us control, he offered wizards true power in the face of an increasingly dangerous Muggle population. I was honored, _honored_ , to be chosen as Dumbledore's assassin! Dumbledore's influence was the entire reason the Muggles got so out of control."

He swallowed. "But I was stupid to think that that was the right way to go about things. I don't know how my father did it and still looked himself in the mirror every day. Remote assassination attempts often cause regrettable collateral damage - I never meant to hurt Katie or poison Weasley. And when you look into someone's eyes, and raise your wand to kill them, or torture them... you have to wonder if you're really any better than they are."

Hermione found herself speechless. They were silent for a long time as their words and memories sunk in. Malfoy dimmed the lights with a wave of his wand, and Hermione stared into the darkness, deep in thought.

* * *

She dozed lightly for several hours, and woke in an uncomfortable position. It was still dark, Malfoy's green flames still glowing from the edges of his throne. She re-applied her Cushioning Charm, but sat up, rubbing her eyes. Conjuring a cold blue flame in her hand, she stared into the fire, taking comfort in its soft light.

"Hermione?" His voice echoed through the room.

"When did I lose the 'Granger' title?"

Draco was silent for a few moments before replying.

"When I found your constellation."

She raised an eyebrow, but a small smile perked up the corners of her mouth. "All right then, _Draco_." Despite everything that she had just seen and heard from him, it was oddly nice to think of him by his first name, rather than the Malfoy name that carried so much infamy in the Wizarding world.

"Your parents," Draco continued, "what color is their blood?"

"What _color_?"

"Yeah, like, is it brown? Or muddy at all?"

Hermione gaped at him, extinguishing her blue fire. "It's red, just like anyone else's. Why would it be any different?"

"Well, I was told, my entire life, that Muggles' blood is brown and muddy, and that's why they can't do magic, that true magic only runs through red-blooded wizards' veins. Pureblooded wizards. That even Muggle-borns aren't true wizards, because they bleed brown. You saw the pictures in the _Pureblood Post_." He paused again. "I realized it was a lie, that a Mudblood isn't a real thing, when I saw you bleed at my house. So I was just wondering about actual Muggle blood."

"So that's why you saved me from Bellatrix, why you gave me that flower," said Hermione slowly. "Because you realized my blood was the same color as yours."

"Yes. And it made me doubt-"

Draco stopped mid-sentence as Hermione stood up and removed her protective enchantments, then approached him, her wand at the ready. He stood too and faced her warily. He looked like he hadn't slept a wink.

"So if someone looks different enough from you, you're happy to see them suffer? If my blood were brown, I wouldn't be standing here today?"

"No, I didn't mean-"

"Your hair is blonde, _Draco_. I've never liked blonde," she said scathingly, coming up with an analogy on the spot. "We call your kind Fairhairs. We think _true_ magic can only be found in redheads and brunettes. That's why I hang out with Harry and Ron. And since you don't really count as a real wizard, I'll just watch silently as you suffer."

She raised her wand, but before she could perform a spell, Draco grabbed her wrists, spun her around and forced her backwards onto the black and silver sofa. He pinned her arms behind her, and she found herself looking up at his pale, angry face, green flames dancing in his stormy grey eyes.

"I saved your _life_ that day, you ungrateful little-"

"If my blood were brown," she interrupted, insisting, "Would you still have saved me?"

Draco swallowed, breathing heavily, and a strange mix of expressions passed over his features, handsome and terrifying in the green firelight. Hermione felt her heartbeat quicken as a sudden wave of unbidden desire washed over her and mixed sickeningly with her anger. She tried to think of Ron and his flaming red hair, but she could only see blonde and black and silver and green... _People like you_ , Draco's voice from sixth year echoed through her mind, _that tempt Purebloods to stray from the duty that binds us to marrying our own kind..._

Coming to her senses, she kicked upwards into his groin, twisting out of his grip as he cried out in pain. Those self-defense lessons with Giovanni were coming in handy.

" _Crinus Muto!_ " shouted Hermione, and Draco's hair turned bushy and brown. "See? Now your hair looks just like mine, so I'll never hurt you again. Aren't you _grateful_?" she spat coldly, and she marched around the room, restoring the lights to their usual brightness.

Draco slowly Transfigured both couches back into the long wooden benches, restored his hair to its natural color, then sat down again, his head in his hands. "I don't know," he said finally. "I'd like to say that I'd have saved you anyway. But I don't know."

"Well, at least you're honest about it," Hermione huffed.

Then the door clicked open, and a pair of red checkered stockings and a messy head of grey hair walked through.

* * *

"Aha! I've caught..." the old woman faltered as she realized who she was looking at. " _You_ two! Breaking in after hours! It's been _you_ all these evenings!" her voice was gravelly and throaty, like a hawk that had just eaten a small frog.

"All what evenings?" asked Draco, perplexed. "This is the first night we were here, and _someone_ locked us in."

"Likely story, you criminal! I'm going to report you to the Headmaster's office..."

"How is your daughter, Alexa?" asked Hermione.

Alexa blinked, but then frowned again. "Recovering, and that's the only reason you're not both expelled," she grumbled. "If I had anything to say about it-"

Just then Giovanni Bellavita poked his head around the door. "Ah, a par-ty! Good morning, good morning!"

"These students broke into this room after hours, Professor!" croaked Alexa. "They should be expelled!"

"Ah, my lady Alexa, Dray-co and-a Hermione here are of age, nothin-a wrong with a little late night stroll!" He winked at them.

"But someone has been in here nearly every night, and I finally caught them! They're up to something, I tell you!"

"Now, now, my lovely lady, I'll-a handle it from here," he said smoothly and led her out of the room. She glared at them before whipping her checkered stockings out of sight.

"No worries, my friends," said Giovanni, coming back into the room. "I'll-a see to it that Alexa lays off the locking jinxes from now on." He winked at Hermione and turned to Draco. "See you in the gym, my man?"

"Not this morning, I need some proper sleep," replied Draco, rubbing at his eyes. "How about tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow it is!" and, grinning, muscular hands in his pockets, the stocky Italian strolled around the door and out of sight.

Draco and Hermione glanced at each other nervously. "I'll think about it, everything you said," he said finally, running a hand through his hair. "I'll think about it."

"Same," replied Hermione, and she gave him a small, tight-lipped smile before leaving the room and hurrying towards Gryffindor tower.


	14. An Imperfect World

Strange things were happening at Hogwarts, Harry thought on Saturday morning. An unusual number of valuable items were missing - Dennis Creevey's camera, two of the Ravenclaw Quidditch Team's brooms, a couple of Remembralls, and various rare potions that students' parents had brewed for them. And several students, often the same ones who were missing items, were accused by Alexa of sneaking into the Room of Recovery at night, though they all claimed they had been nowhere near the room. Giovanni Bellavita always came to the students' defense, but it didn't explain Alexa's accusations.

And strangest of all was Hermione Granger skipping breakfast.

"Did you guys have another row last night?" Harry asked Ron when she failed to show up.

"Yeah, but nothing worse than usual, and she never skips breakfast over it. She's probably _already_ at that stupid coffeeshop, look, Malfoy's not here either," Ron grumbled, looking towards the Slytherin table. Harry could guess what their argument had been about.

"You're being a complete moron, Ron, it's not like Hermione's cheating on you with _Malfoy_ ," said Ginny. "You should be ashamed of yourself if she's losing sleep over you. Go to her room and apologize."

Ron mumbled something about not wanting to wake her, and Ginny looked ready to hex her brother as the three of them walked back up to Gryffindor Tower. Ron went into his room and closed his door moodily, but Harry and Ginny, with a wordless glance at each other, decided to check on Hermione.

"Hermione, are you in there? Are you all right?" called Harry as he banged on her door.

After several minutes a bleary-eyed Hermione opened her door, pajama-clad. "Oh, hi Harry, hi Ginny," she glanced around quickly to see if Ron was with them. "I have so much to tell you guys! But right now I just need sleep... tell Ronald that I won't be going to Bugby's Bean today and that no, I'm not cheating on him with Malfoy, all right?"

Ginny giggled. "You do know your boyfriend. I'll tell him. Can I hex him too?"

Hermione laughed tiredly and shook her head. "I'll talk things over with him later. See you two this afternoon?"

"Later, then," said Harry.

Later that day, during Ginny's quidditch practice, Harry, Ron, and Hermione went to Hogsmeade together and got a table at the Three Broomsticks. Hermione seemed distracted on their way down, and as soon as they sat down she took a deep breath and started telling them everything that happened the previous night, in great detail.

She was crying as she told them about helping with the Vanishing Cabinet, beaming as she relayed where her parents' memories were hidden, and shaking when she recounted her shared memories and conversations with Malfoy in the Room of Recovery. Harry was glad to see that Ron had put aside his anger and put his arm around Hermione, holding her tighter as the story went on.

"See, I told you Malfoy was still a git," said Ron when she had finished, though he looked slightly guilty. Hermione just nodded and buried her head in Ron's shoulder.

"I don't know, Ron, the stuff he was saying about Muggles damaging the environment with their technology, I mean, that's kind of true," said Harry, thinking of his aunt and uncle and their wasteful ways. "Though to think that killing Dumbledore and following Voldemort was going to somehow solve everything is the dumbest idea I've ever heard."

"Is it true though?" said Ron. "Dad says Muggle scientists aren't really sure whether carbon is actually causing global warming and stuff."

"It's true, Ron," Hermione sighed. "The Muggle news can be confusing, but I've glanced at a couple books on the subject - the world is definitely heating up, and it coincides exactly with the rise of industrialization and gas-powered vehicles. Correlation doesn't imply causation of course, but you can also make climate models to show how these 'greenhouse gases' cause heat to be trapped in the atmosphere."

Harry thought for a moment and sipped his butterbeer. "I'm more worried about the fact that Malfoy's dad was working on Dark magic that can rival nuclear bombs. That kind of power can't fall into the hands of Dark wizards. We should tell Kingsley, make sure he knows about this."

Ron and Hermione agreed, and Harry rubbed his painless scar out of habit. Who knew that the world could still have so many problems after Voldemort was destroyed?

* * *

"Hey, my man Dray-co!" cried Giovanni as he entered the gym. Draco nodded to his workout partner and resumed punching the living daylights out of an enchanted punching bag that would move less the harder you hit it.

"Got a new lady-friend, I see?"

Draco gave the bag a final furious hit and shook his head. "No, we met in the Room of Recovery accidentally, and I think Alexa just locked us in there for kicks. Hermione's dating that Freckle-face, Ron Weasley, anyway."

"Ah, young-a love never lasts long, my friend! Wait it out, she'll-a come around."

They started their usual workout routine, and Giovanni was talking animatedly while Draco only half-listened, his mind on Hermione's beautiful sleeping form in the Room of Recovery, on her furious reprimand of his own prejudices, on the way she actually considered his views on Muggles despite her heritage...

"...But yes-a, yes-a, I'm-a looking around, not going to stick around this-a castle for more than a year," Giovanni was saying.

"You're leaving Hogwarts after this year? How come?" asked Draco, dropping to the ground after finishing his thirtieth levitation-assisted pullup.

"Ah, not enough-a pay for teachers, these days! There have to be better offers out there, you just gotta keep looking, you know, money is-a power, money is-a power."

"It's not always power. Knowledge is, but not money," said Draco, thinking of his father. "Money's only power if you use it wisely and you keep out of trouble. We - I mean, my family has old money, but my father's in Azkaban with no possibility of bail."

A brief look of greed flashed over Giovanni's face at the words _old money_ , and Draco immediately regretted saying anything. Even his best friends always seemed to treat him like a Gringotts vault whenever the subject of money came up.

"Good point, good point, my man," was all Giovanni said, and Draco was thankful.

* * *

"So, the Mirror of Erised, that's where your parents' memories are hidden," said Harry, "But where's the mirror gotten off to?"

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were clustered in Harry's bedroom again, two weeks after Hermione retrieved the memory from her heart. Between classes, homework, and the hightening mystery of yet more students' possessions gone missing, this was the first time they had the opportunity to brainstorm together about the missing mirror. Ginny lay across Harry's lap on the bed and Hermione sat at the desk, Ron's gangly limbs stretched out on the floor.

"Well," began Hermione, jotting down her ideas on a piece of parchment, "My memory said that Dumbledore helped show me how to encase things in the mirror, so it was probably still at Hogwarts at the time. The problem is that Hogwarts has rearranged itself drastically after the war, so even the usual hiding places might be scattered about."

"You don't think it was in the Room of Requirement, do you?" asked Ron. "That was where you were in that memory with Malfoy."

Hermione felt a wave of dread wash over her as she remembered the utter destruction of the Room of Requirement by Fiendfyre. "Oh no, it could have been, I hope not..."

"No," said Harry firmly. "It couldn't have been there. Dumbledore always put the Mirror of Erised in a secluded place by itself, not in a room full of magical objects that could break it."

Hermione suspected that Harry was only denying the possibility to make her feel better, but she had to admit he had a point. "Okay, so secluded places..."

"There were a couple pretty secluded places we found during Ted Tonks's map-making class, during exploration time," said Ginny, blushing slightly, and Hermione suspected that Ginny and Harry took advantage of those secluded places in more ways than one. "I didn't see any mirrors though, did you, Harry?"

"No, but it could have been covered by a tapestry or something, we didn't check out everything. We can go back there tomorrow."

"You know what, I'll sign up for that class, I'm sure Ted won't mind me joining in a couple months late," said Hermione, brightening. "That'll be the _perfect_ opportunity to explore the castle!" Harry grinned back at her, nodding in agreement.

" _Another_ class?" grumbled Ron, "Don't you have enough on your plate, Hermione?"

The three of them looked down at Ron, astonished. "Ron, these are my _parents_ we're talking about! Wouldn't you go to the same lengths to save yours?"

"Ron, you should sign up for it too, it's fun, and you could help us," started Harry.

"We just spent all last _year_ searching for stuff, now we have to find a mirror too?" groaned Ron. "Your parents are safe in Australia, so what's the rush? It's not like they're dying or anything."

Hermione felt tears spring to her eyes, and through the blur she saw Ginny stand up and hit Ron with the fastest Bat-Bogey hex she had ever witnessed.

"Bloody hell, Ginny!" Ron yelled, and ran out of the room, covered in black flapping protrusions.

"Y-you didn't have to do that, Ginny..."

"Oh yes I did, did you hear him!?"

"He's - he's been like that ever since he went to that Muggle village with George last Saturday evening," sniffed Hermione, wiping her eyes. "I think maybe he just misses Fred..."

" _I_ miss Fred, but I am not a smarmy insensitive git because of it!"

"I'll talk to him, don't worry," she said, and suddenly she felt Harry's hand on her shoulder.

"I understand, Hermione, Ron doesn't know what it's like to not have your parents around," said Harry. "I just want you to know that I'll be there for you, just like you stuck with me last year. We'll find this mirror together. And Ron will come 'round, he's just being stupid."

Hermione gave him a grateful smile and stood up to hug Harry tightly. She caught Ginny's eye over Harry's shoulder. "Thanks, you two."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's so different writing from Harry's point of view than from Hermione's, or Draco's. Harry has such a unique perspective on things. :) Also, I realize Ron is being unusually weird/mean in this chapter, but the reasons will become clearer in a few chapters. I've seen other fics depict Ron as a jerk, but to me he's just the lovable, loyal, laid back, somewhat-insecure redhead sidekick of Harry Potter.


	15. Diffindo

Draco brandished his wand, standing alone on a grassy slope by the lake on the grounds, his cloak billowing around him in the chilly December wind. " _Expecto Patronum!_ " A thin, faint wisp of transparent material emanated briefly from his wand before extinguishing. Rubbing his left forearm, he tried again. " _Expecto Patronum!_ " he shouted harder, more angrily, but the second time was even worse, and he clutched his throbbing Dark Mark.

Damn Charms. It had always been his worst subject, not that he couldn't keep up with a little effort, but charms were just... not his style. He preferred potions and the Dark Arts and transfiguration to perform any magic he needed, and most practical charms could be better done by a house-elf, anyway. But now Flitwick was teaching the seventh-years one of the hardest possible charms, the conjuring of a full-bodied Patronus.

He would need it to get past his NEWTS, but that was not why he was trying so hard. If he could conjure a Patronus, then perhaps he could make his mother feel just a bit happier in Azkaban, if only for a short while. He thought of his mother, tried to fill himself with happy memories of her... the happy ones were so _long_ ago... but yes, he could remember, when she beamed with pride at him having been made a Prefect... " _Expecto Patronum!_ " A brighter glow of silver shone from his wand, but his arm was aching, and the spell stopped abruptly.

He cried aloud in rage, frustrated, and a couple of birds flitted away into the nearest tree. It wasn't nearly cold enough for December, he decided, and he started to freeze the lake water with his wand. Cold and crisp, icy and slippery, just like his soul, he thought, and snickered to himself.

Draco didn't understand why his Dark Mark still ached on occasion - Giovanni had said it might be psychosomatic, a physical memory of the excrutiating pain it had caused him when it was active, associated to his darkest memories of the Dark Lord. But then why did it hurt every time he tried to conjure a Patronus, which relied on happy memories? Did he have any happy memories that were not somehow mixed up in his post-war survivor's guilt? Louise was dead, his mother in Azkaban, Crabbe dead and Goyle locked up...

 _Hermione Granger_ , he thought. At least _she_ wasn't currently suffering because of him. And he _did_ save her from Bellatrix, the ungrateful snob. _Well, it's worth a try_ , he thought. Focusing on the memory of laughing with her on the Astronomy tower, he tried again.

The charm was brighter than most of his attempts, but a jolt of pain still shot through his arm. Draco couldn't take it anymore. Furious, he rolled up his sleeve and slashed at his forearm. " _Evanesco!_ " he cried. " _Scourgify! Muto Mark!_..." he hit it with spell after spell, the Mark staying quite undamaged.

" _Diffindo!_ "

The skin of his forearm suddenly burst apart, blood spattering everywhere, and he screamed in pain. He hadn't meant to do that, he was just desperate... but maybe now he would be rid of it...

Performing a few slapdash healing spells, he staggered towards the infirmary, feeling lightheaded and dizzy. "Mr. Malfoy! Take a seat," said Madam Pomfrey as he walked in, the left arm of his cloak soaked in blood.

"Madam Pomfrey, I was just practicing charms and accidentally hit my own arm..."

Madam Pomfrey frowned. "Let me see it." She took his arm and pushed up his sleeve. Her eyes widened, and he looked down. To his horror, the imprint of the skull and snake had reappeared even sharper, more well-defined, through the remaining bloody gashes that he had not managed to heal. "Blasting your forearm off will not get rid of your Dark Mark, boy!" she said briskly. "It will just move to the nearest location on your body! You've probably embedded it in even further!" She cast a few healing spells of her own, stopping the rest of the bleeding, but Draco could tell that she did not want to be looking at his Dark Mark and was trying to finish as hastily as possible.

"Next time, _think_ before you get yourself a blasted permanent Dark tatoo!" she reprimanded him, and thrusting a bottle of Dittany into his hands, she stalked out of the infirmary, slamming her office door behind her.

Draco found himself breathing heavily, seeing spots of anger in front of his eyes. He had never hated his Dark Mark more. He _had_ to get rid of it, just so that the rest of the Wizarding world would start treating him like a normal person again. Hermione's voice sounded in his head: _See? Now your hair's the same color as mine, so I'll never hurt you again! Aren't you grateful?_

Was that the reason she could look past his Dark Mark when no one else seemed to be able to? Did she, as a Muggle-born, know what this was like? Did Potter offer his hand to Draco because his own scar had tormented him his entire life? Did they know how it felt to be judged, ignored, tripped, hexed, spat upon, for something that was impossible to change?

* * *

Ron's mood improved somewhat over the next few weeks, and he did sign up for the magical map-making class. Harry and Ginny had already become rather obsessed with creating a new Maurader's Map, and now that there was a mirror to find too, they both redoubled their efforts to understand the castle's new layout. And so, to Hermione's delight, the four of them spent many adventurous hours each Thursday evening, well beyond class time, exploring the castle's new rooms and corridors and mapping out their discoveries.

And yet things were still not quite right with Ron. His disgruntlement at the number of hours Hermione spent studying didn't abate even though she now avoided Bugby's Bean to stay away from Malfoy, and she found herself skipping out on sleep in order to keep up with her classes and research on mirror enchantments between spending time with Ron. She found herself longing for the power to extend time, for a more skilled Potions partner than Ron, for a friend to study with who didn't just laze around and then copy her work. She didn't want to admit it, but it was undeniably true: the man she loved was dragging her down.

Things came to a head when Hermione brought up the subject of Ron's career plans. It was time to start planning, after all.

"I _do_ hope I'll get enough NEWTS to get into St. Catterwall's University in London, they have the best program in inter-species magical relations anywhere," she fretted aloud, practicing her own human transfiguration on her hair one evening in Ron's room. "I'd better start planning and studying, it's already December... Ron, would St. Catterwall's fit with what you'd like to do? Do you think you'd like to work at the ministry like your dad?"

Ron, who was sitting with his feet up on his desk, reading the Quidditch section of the Daily Prophet, looked at her over the paper. "I dunno, Hermione, it's only December, that's ages away."

"But surely you must have _some_ idea of what you want to do with your life?"

Ron winced, and Hermione blushed, regretting her choice of words, but looked steadily at her boyfriend. She had been wondering about this for a while.

"I mean, sure, working at the Ministry seems fine," muttered Ron. "As long as Percy's not my boss..."

"Percy just likes to work at the Ministry to feel important, and your dad likes to play with muggle objects, so his job is perfect for him too," said Hermione. "What might you like to do at the ministry?"

"I don't know, checking Quidditch brooms for curses before the World Cup? I don't KNOW Hermione, I'll figure out something, it's only December." Ron folded the Prophet and picked up his wand absentmindedly, sparks flying out the end.

"But Ron, I need to know what to focus on in my NEWTS, and that depends somewhat on where we're going to be living next year. Can't we at least talk about it?"

"Uh, sure," Ron looked uncomfortable. "Didn't we say probably London?"

Hermione stared at him. "Yes, but I mean, doesn't it depend on what _you_ want to be doing next year too? I'd like to be in London, attending St. Cattermole's, but if you want to be in Bulgaria or somewhere then I'd instead focus on..."

"Why would I want to be in Bulgaria? We don't know anyone in Bulgaria, except Viktor Krum," he grumbled the last words.

"Oh," said Hermione, "I just thought... since you like Quidditch... and you mentioned the World Cup, and that's where the committee is..."

Ron's ears turned red. "Don't try to plan out my life for me, all right? Why can't we just eventually settle down somewhere near wherever Harry and Ginny end up, and you know, have a family and I'll find a job..."

" _You'll_ find a job?" Hermione exclaimed, exasperated. "What about me? Did you even _hear_ me talking about university? I mean, I wouldn't mind being a mother, but it's not exactly the only thing I want to do with my life! Surely you don't want me to just settle down with you at age 19 and have children as you follow Harry Potter around wherever he goes, and... and... if you want someone at home with the kids, why wouldn't _you_ consider being the primary parent?"

Ron looked at her as if she just asked him why he wasn't wearing Luna's radishes on his ears. "Well... you're the witch?"

Hermione stalked off without a word and slammed the door behind her.

* * *

Ron and Hermione did their best to smooth things out over the next few weeks, but Ron was still tense whenever the subject of their future came up. _I'll just plan on St. Cattermole's then_ , Hermione kept telling herself. _He's right, he'll figure his plans out after NEWTS are over. I'll just do my best on my NEWTS, apply to St. Cattermole's, and then we'll figure things out._

Hermione found herself seeking out Harry and Ginny herself, finding their loving company to be a welcome relief from Ron's indecisive insecurities. "Harry," she suggested one day, as the three of them sat by the Hogwarts lake, warming themselves by the bottled flame Hermione conjured, "Have you thought about asking for the Defense Against the Dark Arts position next year?"

"Me? But I thought you had to go through lots of extra study to be a teacher at Hogwarts."

Ginny laughed aloud and poked Harry in the chest. "I hardly think you need extra study in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Or how to teach it, Mr. D.A."

Hermione smiled. "My point exactly! And I've heard Giovanni is looking to leave at the end of the year."

Harry looked taken aback by the smiling women urging him on. "I don't know, isn't the position jinxed? Maybe it would only last me a year before I'd have to do something else anyway. And I was thinking of applying to be an Auror..."

"The Auror office doesn't have any openings next year, I checked," said Hermione. "And I'm pretty sure the jinx lifted when Voldemort died. The one-year jinx started right after his visit to Hogwarts to apply for the job himself. Giovanni is just a coincidence," she said with finality.

Harry looked at Ginny. "How would you feel about living near Hogwarts next year?"

"Sounds great!" said Ginny. "I was thinking of helping George out at his joke shop, actually, and maybe we can set up a new shop in Hogsmeade. He was thinking of moving it there, and he could use the extra help and laughs now that Fred's... you know, gone." Her eyes dimmed at the mention of her brother, and Harry put his arm around her.

Hermione looked at the pair with envy. How did they make it so easy? They just... got along. _Maybe I'm too ambitious_ , thought Hermione. But then, just as quickly, she imagined a future of raising children and doing housework while Ron went to a dreary day job to earn their keep. She couldn't live like that. It was fine for Ginny or Mrs. Weasley, but it wasn't her.


	16. Happy and Afraid

"Welcome in-a, welcome, welcome!" cried Giovanni, as he always did at the start of class. "Before-a Christmas break, I-a have a special treat we'll-a practice with today." He rolled out a wheeled cabinet, that was jerking and jolting as if something was rattling around inside of it. Surely a Boggart. _Third year stuff_ , thought Draco, _this will be a piece of cake._

"Now, you're all-a learning Patronuses with Professor Flitwick, yes?" he asked the room. The class nodded their heads, and Draco's stomach sank.

"Good, good. Because it's-a one thing to conjure a Patronus when you're-a happy, or even if you're-a sad, like when Dementors are around. Happy and sad at the same time is easy, it's easy, it's called 'bittersweet'." The class laughed. "But it's a whole other-a game to conjure a Patronus when you're _frightened_!" The Italian professor grinned wickedly at the last word. "Happy and afraid, _that's_ -a the hardest combination!"

Draco glanced around the room. Potter looked completely at ease - stupid _brave_ Gryffindors - but everyone else, especially the Slytherins, looked nervous. Slytherins looked nervous by looking angry, of course.

"So, I'm-a going to have you one by one, face the Boggart and try to conjure a Patronus while looking at it. If you can't do it, then say _Riddikulus_ and we'll all have a good laugh anyway, yeah? All right, all right, who's first... yes! Mr. Weasley!"

Ron Weasley had volunteered. He stepped up, and the boggart transformed into a gigantic hairy spider. " _Expecto Patronum!_ " he said, but his voice was shaking and he didn't quite manage a full-bodied spell. He closed his eyes and tried again. " _Expecto Patronum!_ " This time a small silver dog erupted from his wand and launched itself at the spider. " _Riddikulus!_ " He banished it back into the cabinet, the class laughing and cheering.

"Excellent try!" said Giovanni. "Next-a time the challenge is to keep your eyes open, but good first attempt, Weasley man, good attempt."

The class took turns, and Draco was relieved to see that hardly any of them were able to produce a full-bodied Patronus in the face of their greatest fear without closing their eyes or looking away. He was looking at the clock, standing in the very back of the room, hoping that class would end before he had to take a turn...

"Harry Potter! Good, good, you next!" Potter marched up confidently and the boggart predictably transformed into a Dementor. He stared straight at it. " _Expecto Patronum!_ " he cried, and his silver stag launched forth, knocking the boggart-dementor backwards and sending it spinning around the room. The Gryffindors laughed and applauded, and the boggart was banished without so much as a " _Riddikulus_ " from Potter's wand. Draco rolled his eyes. Of course the Boy-Who-Just-Couldn't-Die would have no trouble.

"Go on, Hermione," Weasley and Potter were whispering after Potter walked back to join them. "You can do it." Hermione was shaking her head, looking frightened.

"Hermione, my lady, come on up, give it a try!" called Giovanni. She walked forward, looking more unsure of herself than Draco had ever seen her in a class.

"I've... I've always had trouble with Patronuses, sir," she said nervously. Draco was amazed. Hermione Granger, having trouble with a Patronus? Weren't Gryffindors perpetually happy?

Giovanni urged her on, and Hermione took a deep breath and approached the boggart. It suddenly turned into a great mirror, with ancient scrawled writing along the rim, that had large cracks through the glass, as if someone had thrown a rock at it. The Mirror of Erised, destroyed.

One of the Slytherin students snickered. "You know broken mirrors aren't _actually_ bad luck, Granger?"

"Shut up, Mulciber," said Harry, Ron, and Draco in unison. They looked at each other, and Draco wasn't sure if he or they were more surprised that he had intervened on Hermione's behalf. Hermione also turned around, and Mucliber walked straight up to Draco.

"Siding with the Mudblood, Malfoy? And here I thought you were just a coward, not a straight up blood traitor. You'll pay for this after class. Big bad Daddy's not around to save you now." He pushed Draco, hard.

"Settle down, settle down, gentlemen," Giovanni called, but Draco put up a hand indicating that he just needed a minute to deal with Mulciber.

"Better watch that tongue, Mucliber," he cocked an eyebrow, drawing himself up to his full Malfoy height. "Unless you would like it if I withdrew the Malfoy family investments in your brother's potions research lab?" Mulciber went pale and backed away, and several Slytherins gasped at the realization that Draco was now in charge of his family's vast sum of wealth. He smirked. At least he had learned _something_ from his father. Three months out of Azkaban, he was finally getting his game back on.

Hermione turned back to the broken mirror, and Draco could see her reflection in the broken glass looking directly at him, smiling softly. His stomach flipped pleasantly, and he realized it was the first time she had so much as _looked_ at him since their night in the Room of Recovery. He suspected her avoidance had something to do with the glares he was getting from Weasley lately.

" _Expecto Patronum!_ " A small silver otter burst forth from Hermione's wand and hopped once before vanishing. Not as impressive as Potter's, but a full-bodied Patronus nonetheless. Beaming, she shouted " _Riddikulus!_ " and the mirror's cracks morphed into a comical smiling face. The class laughed and applauded, and the boggart shrank and retreated to the cabinet.

"Excellente, excellente! See, my lady, no trouble at all! Dray-co, Dray-co, you next!"

His stomach sank as he sauntered up to the boggart with a confidence he did not feel. He rubbed his Dark Mark absentmindedly, trying to remember the memories that had gotten him the brightest Patronus charms...

The boggart leapt towards him and morphed into a ghost. The ghost of Elwin Dolohov.

Draco's body convulsed with horror, his wand arm somehow remembering being forced to kill even though his mind no longer remembered it directly.

"We were _friends_ , Draco, how could you? Look what you've done to me!" the boggart-ghost spoke, echoing eerily.

For a moment Draco forgot where he was, and backed up until he crashed into the nearest desk, clutching it behind him for stability, a rush of dread sweeping through his system. "I didn't mean to, I didn't want to!" he gasped. "I tried to kill myself instead!"

"But you _failed_ , didn't you? You failed, just like you always do, you sad excuse for a Malfoy. Can't kill when you want to, can't stop from killing when you don't. Loser. Traitor. _Coward_..."

The ghost kept up the taunts, and Draco looked down, his heart racing and blood pounding in his ears. Oh right, that's where he was. The Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Giovanni seemed to be saying something to him from very far away. He took several deep breaths. All he needed to do was fail at a Patronus a couple of times and then he'd just banish the boggart. He shut his eyes, trying to shut out Elwin's voice, to think of his mother...

" _Expecto Patronum!_ " He opened his eyes a crack to see a thin, faint wisp of smoke emanating from his wand. His Dark Mark throbbed with pain, and he clutched it, doubling over and dropping to his knees as the Boggart transformed into a different ghost. It was an eight-year-old little girl, stirring a distant memory in Draco's mind.

"Louise," he whispered, "Louise..."

"Dray! Why didn't you save me, Dray? Didn't you remember me?" she giggled sweetly. "Or would you have saved me if you knew...?" the ghost child started bleeding a translucent red, seeping out of her pores, flowing down her flower-patterned dress. "Either way, I'm still IT in our game, remember? I'm coming to get you, Dray, I'm coming to find you..."

It's just a boggart, some faint part of his mind was trying to say. Just a boggart, just banish it... " _Riddikulus!_ " he shouted, his wand hand trembling, not even sure what sort of humor he was aiming for. It changed into the ghost of his father, and Draco found himself horrified, then sneering, then snickering, until he was laughing cruelly, shakily, almost sobbing, at the sight of Louise's killer in her place. "SERVES YOU RIGHT, YOU MURDERER!" he screamed as the boggart retreated into the cupboard at the sound of his twisted laughter. Giovanni waved his wand and snapped it shut.

There was dead silence in the classroom. He realized he was breathing hard, shaking violently. Draco felt eyes staring at him from all sides, and stared determinedly at the ground as he pulled himself to his feet, trying to steady his hands.

"Nicely done, everyone, nice-a-ly done! That's all for today, have a hap-py, hap-py Christmas and don't forget to be strong!"

Draco hurried to grab his things, avoiding all eye contact as the students whispered around him. "Losing his mind, isn't he?" Weasley whispered a little too loudly. "Ron, don't stare! Come _on_!" Hermione hissed furiously in reply.

So much for getting his game back on. He waited until the last of the Slytherins had left, then hurried down the opposite corridor, not exactly knowing where he was going, until he rounded a corner and nearly ran into Professor Tonks.

"Draco! I was hoping to find you!" he said, and Draco blinked in surprise. He had never even spoken to the man. "Your aunt Andromeda and I, we were thinking of having a little Christmas get-together, inviting a few of Nymphadora's and Remus's old friends and relatives over to meet little Teddy. It'll be his first Christmas, and he's nearly a year old. What do you say to joining us and meeting your new cousin?"

Draco considered. Visiting the son of a werewolf, that would just not do in Pureblood circles... but his father and Aunt Bellatrix were not around to reprimand him, and he really couldn't care less what anyone in Slytherin house had to say at the moment. Besides, where would he spend Christmas otherwise? Alone at the Manor?

"All right, I'll be there, Professor. Where and when will it be?"

"Day after Christmas, our place, any time after three, casual attire. And call me Ted. Glad you can make it!" Ted Tonks shook his hand firmly, then continued down the hallway, leaving Draco wondering what in Merlin's name he just signed up for.

* * *

"Oh I _knew_ you'd be offered the job, Harry!" squealed Hermione as she, Ron, and Harry walked towards the Hog's Head, where they had agreed to meet Kingsley. "Congratulations!"

"Yeah, McGonagall said she was planning on asking me whether I'd like the position in a few months anyway! She said I don't even have to worry about NEWTs, the job is mine for the taking."

"Wow," said Ron, "Well, here's hoping you last more than a year."

They were all grinning as they entered the Hog's Head. The tall Auror they were looking for was sipping a mug of a dark steaming liquid, sitting with his back to the wall in the far corner of the shop.

"Harry, Ron, excellent to see you," his deep voice boomed as he shook their hands. "Take a seat. You said there was something you had to talk to me about?"

Harry nodded, and told Kingsley what Hermione had relayed about Dark wizards starting to work on magic that would rival nuclear bombs, with the intent of taking over the Muggle world. To their surprise, Kingsley started to chuckle.

"Of course, son, they're always working on things like that, have been for years. Catching them and stopping them in their tracks is a continual process. You-Know-Who wasn't the only Dark wizard ever to have lived, you see."

"Oh," said Harry. He felt embarrassed, and wasn't sure what to say.

"Why haven't we learned about this, in History of Magic class, or... or from the Daily Prophet?" asked Hermione.

"Well, History of Magic focuses on the entire past, not just recent history, so you may be getting to it this year in your classes," said Kingsley thoughtfully. "But surely you've seen the pattern in your history books? The Potioneering Panthers spilling a poisonous, self-replicating potion into Muggle wells, giving rise to the Bubonic Plague that wiped out a third of the Muggle population? The Voodoo Doll era, in which witches and wizards from several different countries took turns controlling the Muggle Queen of England? The Black Magic Sorcerers' Societies popping up all over Europe in the last century? Of _course_ there are terrorists out there working on destructive magic. The Muggles' technology is rivaling magic these days, and Dark wizards are more determined than ever to seize control."

Hermione nodded, and Ron looked dumbfounded.

"As for the Daily Prophet," Kingsley continued, "The Auror Office mostly deals with these things in secret when we find them, and just lock up the offenders quietly. Terrorism is contagious, you know. If one wizard decides to do something crazy and poison a Muggle water well, and the Prophet writes about it, suddenly every other wizard in the country has that idea in their heads. And if they're feeling anti-Muggle on a given day, well, you can see how hard it is to control." He sighed. "This is something the Muggle papers haven't really figured out yet - they print all the most sensational stories to sell their papers, and then acts of terror get magnified to the point of actually increasing their appeal. Lucky for us, ordinary magical events are interesting enough that the Daily Prophet is doing fine without reporting every terrorist act."

The three younger wizards glanced at each other, astonished at what they were hearing.

"What can we do to help?" asked Harry finally.

Kingsley leaned towards them. "Well, this brings me to something I wanted to ask all three of you, today. Dark wizards are running rampant right now, and there is a dangerous wizards-first sentiment these days. Voldemort's inner circle of Death Eaters have all been captured, but the threat that you mention is very real, as are many other threats. Many of the old Sorcerers' Societies are being revived, taking advantage of the general chaos to engage in organized crime of the more petty kind - trading illegal potions, thievery, and the like. So the Auror office, while we don't have full-time positions available yet, is looking for extra help for the next few months.

"You three, naturally, have proven yourselves time and time again, and we need your help. Your friend Neville has been serving us well, but we just need a couple extra hands on deck right now. Would you be able to join us? This would serve as a replacement for your NEWTS, as Auror training is far more involved than anything you will learn here."

Hermione and Ron looked at Harry, but Harry looked Kingsley in the eye. "I'm sorry, but we have other things we need to take care of first," he said firmly, and Hermione nodded in agreement, but Ron gaped at him. Harry nudged Ron in the ribs. "Yeah," he sputtered.

Kingsley frowned, but gave them a nod. "Well, consider the offer to be open indefinitely. Send me an owl if you change your mind." And he shook their hands again, then walked out of the Hog's Head and Disapparated.

The three of them stayed, ordered butterbeers, and sat around the back table to discuss the new offer. "Two job offers in one day, Harry! Nice going," said Ron, who was clearly happier now that he had a job offer himself.

"Thanks," Harry grinned. "But we need to help Hermione find those memories first, and I'm not so sure I actually want to be fighting Dark wizards anymore. Teaching sounds loads better. Plus, I get to stay at Hogwarts..."

Across the table, Hermione shook her head. "You two should consider the offer, just for the next few months like Kingsley said. _I_ can't go, we haven't found the mirror yet, and you're right, that _is_ my top priority right now. But there's not much of the castle left to explore, and I'm sure Ginny and I can find it. And Harry, what better preparation is there for your teaching next year than to learn what the Aurors are up against these days?"

"No," said Harry firmly, reaching out to grip her hand across the table. "We said we'd stay and help you through this. We meant it." He glanced at Ron, who nodded quickly.

Hermione smiled. "That's very... noble and loyal of you, Harry, I really do appreciate it, but finding my parents' memories isn't exactly Horcrux level difficulty. Really, I can handle it. You should think about what's best for you and Ginny." She turned to Ron. "And if you want to go, I mean, Neville is doing the same thing and still dating Luna, it should be fine..."

Ron looked confused and a little relieved. "I... er, maybe, yeah," he said noncomittally.

"Well, we can decide over break," said Harry, "But first, we have quite a few Christmas parties to attend."


	17. Christmas Grief

Christmas at the Weasleys' was quite possibly the worst Christmas of Hermione's life. Harry was off spending Christmas day with the Dursleys at Dudley's request, Mrs. Weasley sobbed every time George spoke and Fred wasn't there to chime in, and Percy's very existence was putting everyone on edge. Bill, Fleur, Charlie, and Mr. Weasley mostly kept quiet besides the occasional mention of work or news, and Ginny and George were giggling and whispering throughout the day, plotting out new ideas for joke shop items. That left Hermione to deal with a very moody and distant Ron.

After a full, exhausting day of exchanging gifts and eating turkey dinner, Hermione finally decided it was time. "Ron, let's go to your room, I have something to show you," she said, putting on a forced smile and leading him up to the room he usually shared with Harry. As soon as they were inside and the door was closed, she cast a _Muffliato_ charm on the door and all the walls. She turned around and took a deep breath.

"We need to talk."

"Hermione?"

"Don't _Hermione_ me, _Ronald_ , you know exactly what I'm talking about."

Ron looked down at the floor, his ears turning red. Hermione sat down on Harry's bed, facing him.

"I saw how you acted when you were getting sick of Lavender but didn't want to be the one to break it off," she said, struggling to keep her voice steady. "Don't do this to me, Ron. I deserve better than that. Talk to me."

Ron's expression was sadder than she had ever seen it, and he got up and joined Hermione on Harry's bed, putting his arm around her shoulders. "I wasn't hoping you'd break it off, I really wasn't, I just... I don't know, Hermione, this - me and you - it's just, well, not what I imagined. I kept hoping we could, y'know, fix it somehow."

Hermione buried her head in his shoulder, her heart sinking at the word _kept_. He was ready to give up too. "I was too," she said, and felt tears welling up in her eyes. "But really, think about it. How many times have we fallen out, been so angry that we weren't able to speak to each other, until Harry ended up bringing us back together again? And why shouldn't we expect that pattern to just continue, over and over again?" A horrible empty feeling weighed down on her as she spoke, a Ron-less future becoming more and more real with every word.

Ron drew a shaky breath, and Hermione realized that this was the first time she had ever seen him truly crying, not just teary-eyed. "I wish I could have been b-better for you, but I was n-never enough, was I?"

"No, Ron, that's not it at all! It's just... I mean..."

"N-No," he shook his head and took a deep breath, and the crying stopped as quickly as it started. "No, Hermione, you deserve someone with a better head on their shoulders, who knows what they want from their life. Someone who can keep up with you. And I, I mean, I just couldn't handle your... well, expectations..."

Hermione laughed through her tears and hugged Ron tighter. "I know, I'm sorry, I was horrible to you, you just needed support and all I did was criticize you."

They were silent for a few moments, just holding each other, neither really knowing what to do next. Finally Ron swallowed and took a breath. "That night I went to the Muggle village with George, we went into a Muggle bar, and we were drinking Muggle beer and having a good time. Then these two girls came up to us and started flirting with us, laying it on pretty thick, you know how drunk girls can get," he said, and Hermione pulled away from him, holding her breath, dreading the next words. "I started dancing with one of them, and George danced with the other, and, well, that was all that happened. She tried to kiss me but I turned away, I said I was taken."

He stopped, and Hermione furrowed her brow, confused at first as to what exactly he was confessing, but then understood. "And you liked her," she finished for him. "She probably was amazed by some of your 'magic tricks' you showed her, wasn't she?"

"Yeah. And when I came back to Hogwarts, I felt terrible about it, but I just kept wishing you were more like her," he shook his head, and Hermione felt a brief stab of hurt in her abdomen that quickly gave way to a strangely warm feeling of relief. "It was wrong, I'm sorry Hermione, I should have told you earlier."

Hermione chuckled and took his hand in hers. "It's fine, Ron, that's the kind of girl who would be better for you anyway. A muggle, maybe, someone who looks up to your skills, not down upon them like me. And I... well, I was actually having feelings like that about other wizards too..." she paused, thinking about Draco pinning her wrists to his elegantly Transfigured sofa, strong and dominant, green fire in his eyes...

"Don't tell me who they were, I'd probably kill them," said Ron seriously, and Hermione laughed again. They hugged for a long moment.

"We'll still be friends, right? I still love you," said Hermione.

"Love you too, Hermione, and honestly, I don't think we could stop being friends if we tried."

Hermione nodded, and, wiping tears from her eyes, broke free from Ron and turned away. Their friendship would fall back into place eventually, but right now she just needed to get away from him. Her heart breaking at the loud sniff she heard behind her as she closed the door, she headed down to her shared room with Ginny, looking forward to a much-needed girls' night in.

* * *

"Draco... where is Draco, have you seen him..." his mother moaned from her cell, staring straight through her son.

"It's me, mother, I'm right here, it's me, Draco. It's Christmas, I came to say happy Christmas." Draco tried unsuccessfully to cast a Patronus. He tried talking to her, reaching out to her, but she noticed nothing - the dementors' effect was too strong. He remembered how it had felt, being in Azkaban, slowly becoming consumed with your own sorrows until nothing felt real anymore. His father looked ten times worse in his own cell, haggard and thin, sitting in a corner and staring into space, unmoving. Moans and angry screams followed Draco's movements as various Death Eaters recognized him from their cells.

Finally Draco motioned to his guard and left Azkaban, drying his eyes on his robes, finding himself in the unusual position of looking forward to a day-after-Christmas party with a motley bunch of blood traitors, werewolf spawn, and Metamorphmagi. 

As he made his way back to the castle, up the spiral staircase and into his bedroom, it struck him that there was another thing to look forward to. _Tomorrow_ , he realized with a start, tomorrow he would finally, _finally_ be able to move about without his Ministry guard. His four months of parole were over.

Freedom!


	18. The Christmas Party

The next morning, as soon as the sun's first rays peeked over the dewey lakeside mist, Draco grabbed his broom, got dressed and combed his hair quickly, and launched off the Slytherin tower ledge, flying across the grounds as fast as he could. He felt the familiar _whoosh_ as he passed the Apparition Boundary, and Disapparated mid-air, broomstick and all.

 _Pop!_ He appeared on a large rock in the middle of the Pacific ocean, that his parents had brought him to when he was little. It was said to be the tip of an enormous floating mountain that had sunk into the sea during the Second Great Wizarding War. He took a deep breath, inhaling the salty ocean air, watching the sun set here on the other side of the globe, spinning around and running his hands along the wet moss that lingered where the tide had receded. He was alive, he wasn't being guarded, _he_ was in control!

 _Pop!_ Draco Disapparated again, into a famous crystal cave in Canada where Seers often harvested new crystal balls. He cast a Lumos and wandered around aimlessly, running his hands along the cavern walls, until the whim struck him to change locations again.

 _Pop!_ He was perched high up on a tree in the canopy of a rainforest in Brazil. He could just barely make out the outline of a nearby village in which he had chosen his first pet snake.

Draco spent the entire morning Apparating around the world - New York City, Beijing, a snowy peak in the Alps, the middle of the Sahara... finally, as the time of the party approached, he chose a random cloud in the sky above him and Apparated directly into it, falling freely until he caught himself with his broom and Apparated midair.

 _Pop!_ Back to the Manor, directly into his old bedroom.

" _Expecto Patronum!_ " he shouted gleefully. A great bright silver light emanated strongly from his wand this time, and he held the spell for a long while, but still no animal appeared, and still his Dark Mark burned. Disappointed, he dropped off his broom, changed the bandage around his forearm, collected some gold he had stashed in places, and _Pop!_ he Disapparated to Diagon Alley.

No sooner had he walked through the swinging door of Toddlers' Tricks n' Treats than he heard a familiar phrase that had annoyed him to no end for the last seven years.

"Mr. Potter, oh my word! What an honour! What can I do for you today?"

Of course Famous Harry Potter, who was Even More Famous Now, was being fawned over by the shop owner. He was probably buying something for some new Weasley spawn. Draco rolled his eyes and walked around the store, looking for something to buy for Teddy Lupin. He lingered at an ornate toy snakophone for a moment, wondering if a kids' snake charming instrument would be considered too Dark for the Tonks family. It was well-made, and he could buy it if he found nothing better.

Wandering around to the back of the shop, he spotted the perfect thing: a toy broomstick that only hovered at most three inches off the ground. Then he looked up to see Potter on the other side, eyeing the same toy. Their eyes met, then they both lunged for it, Potter grabbing it first as Draco tried to shove him out of the way.

Of course Potter ended up with the broom after the brief struggle. "Buying that for yourself, Potter?" Draco sneered in a feeble attempt to save face.

"It's for my godson, and his parents are dead, so I think he needs it more than you do, Malfoy," Potter retorted. _His parents are dead?_ No, it couldn't be the same kid...

"I was going buy it for my _cousin_ , and _his_ parents are dead, so give it up, Potter," Draco glared, holding out his hand demandingly. He winced at the expression of realization dawning on Potter's ugly green-eyed face. It was, it was the same kid. Harry Potter was his cousin's godfather.

"Ted invited you too! You're Teddy's cousin, I forgot," said Harry, grinning, tossing the toy back and forth between his hands. "Well, then, it doesn't matter, he'll get the broom either way." He checked the price tag on the tiny broom he was holding and his eyes widened slightly, but he turned to head towards the cashier.

"Potter, wait." Draco was still holding his hand out, and frowned at it, as if scolding it for still being in the air. Several wild thoughts involving strengthening family ties, staying on the side of power, Hermione Granger, and his father's gaunt face whirled through his mind, and then he looked back up at his arch-enemy as Potter turned around impatiently.

Draco stepped towards him, his hand still outstretched in front of him. "Let's start over, shall we? I'm Draco Malfoy."

It took a few seconds for his meaning to sink into Potter's thick skull, and Draco actually had to make a handshake motion in the air for Potter to fully understand that he was accepting Potter's own offer from months ago. He smirked as Potter grasped his hand and shook it, grinning like an idiot again. "Third time's a charm!" said the Gryffindor. "I'm Harry Potter."

"I know that, you're famous." Draco rolled his eyes.

Potter shrugged. "So are you."

Draco was slightly taken aback, but it wasn't untrue. His reluctant involvement with the Death Eaters and his great Malfoy inheritance made him somewhat of an object of fascination in the papers these days, though he mostly ignored it all and refused every request for an interview. He shrugged and headed over to pick up the snakophone. It was more his kind of gift anyway.

Potter was counting out his gold at the register, and eventually shook his head. "Sorry, can you hold the broom until I swing by Gringotts? I don't have enough on me..."

Draco fished his own gold out of his robes, lazily tossing six Galleons onto the counter. "Pay me back later," he said, unsure if Potter actually would, but not really caring.

Potter blinked. "Er, thanks, Malfoy." He waited at the door while Draco paid for the toy snakophone and had it gift-wrapped.

"Er, want to head there together, I guess?" Potter asked awkwardly when they had left the shop.

Draco snickered. "Oh, whatever would my father say," he said in mock-faint tones. "Let's go." They both Disapparated on the spot and appeared in a park a block away from the Tonks' residence, and walked up to the door together.

* * *

When Andromeda welcomed them in, Draco found himself being shoved aside as several different pairs of arms descended on Potter at once. "Harry!" "Happy Christmas!" "Good to see you!" Draco recognized several Weasleys - Arthur and Molly, Ginny, and one of the older brothers (Charlie?) - somehow all simultaneously hugging Potter or shaking his hand. Dean Thomas and Kingsley Shacklebolt stood nearby, clearly waiting to greet him as well.

To his relief, Andromeda led Draco aside. "Nephew! I haven't seen you since you were a little boy! And now look at you, all grown up! You look just like your father," she said. So this was the 'blood traitor sister' that his mother always warned him about...

"It's... It is good to meet you too, Aunt Andromeda," said Draco, taking her hand in both of his and bowing his head in the traditional Black family greeting. "I brought something for your grandson."

"Oh, why thank you!" She took the gift-wrapped snakophone. "Make yourself at home, Draco, we've magically enlarged the house on the inside for the day, and you can feel free to wander around. I still have a few preparations to take care of, but there are refreshments in the kitchen and dinner will start at five!"

Andromeda hurried off, and Draco found a nice wall in a corner to lean against and survey his surroundings. The Potter-greeting explosion was finally dying down, and Ginny Weasley was whispering something to Potter, who was now looking alarmed. In another corner of the room, Professor McGonagall was talking to a short, long-fingered man... no, a _goblin_ , of all things... A white-and-black spotted cat was curled up under the large Christmas tree that stretched to the magically-heightened ceiling, and by the fireplace, Kingsley was now talking with Arthur Weasley in his deep, booming voice.

Draco felt a surge of panic, feeling suddenly surrounded by enemies, and backed into the kitchen. It was a long, elegantly decorated room (or perhaps magically elongated) and the table was covered with trays and pots of a wide variety of appetizers and sweets. At the far end of the table, Molly Weasley seemed to be rearranging things with her wand. She looked up at him and glared in his direction, then looked back down without a word. Draco breathed a sigh of relief. Being ignored was fine with him. He pretended to be interested in the various goodies, and picked up one of the mugs of butterbeer just to have something to do.

He looked at the clock. He should have showed up later. Much later. Maybe never.

Taking a deep breath, he walked back out into the main room and leaned against his wall again, ignoring the odd glances people were shooting his way. Then he heard a voice that nearly made him spill his butterbeer.

"Ted, you _really_ ought to get the Ministry to put extra protection in place, the way you magically enlarged Teddy's bedroom, it may have created an Apparition Hole. Any sufficiently trained wizard could pop right in!"

It was Hermione Granger. She and Ted Tonks were walking down the staircase together, little Teddy cradled in Ted's arms.

"Yes, perhaps, though with You-know-who gone, there's just not as much reason to worry these days," Ted was replying to Hermione's frustration. Draco and Hermione's eyes met as she reached the bottom stair, and Hermione, who was dressed in a red-and-green sweater and Muggle jeans, turned slightly pink.

"Oh! Hi Draco," she said, and smiled, though as she approached him he saw that there were dark circles under her eyes, and she gave off an overall impression of weariness.

He raised his eyebrows. "Not avoiding me anymore?"

Her smile fell. "No, and I'm sorry that I was."

Draco had no idea what to say to that. Their awkward pause was thankfully interrupted by Ted, who introduced Draco to his little cousin. Before he knew it, he found himself putting down his butterbeer and taking a one-year-old half-breed into his arms, who to his relief was much more Metamorphmagus than Werewolf. Teddy's hair turned bright green as soon as he landed in Draco's arms, and Draco couldn't help but grin. "Slytherin colors, that's right kid. Now turn your eyes silver." To his astonishment, Teddy squealed and his large brown eyes lightened until they were a perfect Veela silver.

"Harry!" Hermione threw her arms around Potter, and Draco handed Teddy back to Ted, wanting to vomit. He wasn't sure he had ever seen two human beings wrap themselves around each other more tightly. "How were your relatives?"

"As interesting as they'll ever be," Potter laughed. They pulled apart a fraction, their noses nearly touching, and Potter dropped his voice to a low murmer. "I heard the news, Ginny told me. Are you - er, doing all right?"

"It's fine, Harry, really, I'm okay about Ron," she took a deep, shaky breath, and continued in a hushed whisper that Draco had to strain to hear. "But Harry... I saw my parents this morning, I just popped over to Australia and went to their dental place, and they... they didn't even _recognize_ me, and I knew they wouldn't, but... well, if anyone asks why I look upset today, tell them it's because Ron and I broke up, okay? I can't talk about this." Then they were embracing again, as Draco determinedly sipped his butterbeer. _She broke up with Weasley, visited her parents..._

"I know how it feels, Hermione, I'm so sorry. But at least they're safe, right?" Potter was saying, and he kissed her temple as Hermione nodded into his shoulder. "Are you sure you're all right with me leaving Hogwarts, then? Ginny and I agreed I should take Kingsley up on the offer. But you know I'd stay and help, all you have to do is say the word."

They finally pulled apart and Hermione shook her head. "Honestly, if you leave and take Ron with you, that's the best thing you could do for me right now. He was _such_ a distraction, I might have finished by now if I wasn't so caught up arguing with him all the time." Harry chuckled, and Hermione reached up to smooth out his messy hair. "Anyway, Merry Christmas, Harry."

"Merry Christmas, Hermione."

 _Merry Christmas, indeed_ , thought Draco, his mind racing.

* * *

Andromeda reappeared, turning on the Wizards' radio to the Christmas station, and soft tunes floated through the room. Draco somehow managed the awkward mingling that ensued, Ted took him on a brief tour of the enlarged house, and finally the dinner started. He found himself sitting across from Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, sandwiched between Kingsley and Ted's muggle brother, Matthew Tonks.

Kingsley mostly ate in silence, and Arthur Weasley engaged Matthew in deep conversation about Muggle electricity. Draco had to chew his food deliberately to stop himself from snickering. His private tutor at the Manor had taught him more about electricity than Muggle-obsessed Weasley himself had managed to learn in a lifetime. It was useful to know some of the things that Muggle scientists discovered, as much of it was what they channeled themselves through their wands - a _Stupefy_ spell was nothing more than a mild electric shock, for instance.

When he said this aloud, Mr. Weasley eyed him suspiciously. "Really? And how would you know this?"

"You can test it, obviously," said Draco smugly. "Ever try to _Stupefy_ a Muggle light bulb? It'll glow for a moment."

Mr. Weasley and Matthew both suddenly looked immensely excited. "Wow, you wizards would be good at jumping a car, then," Matthew grinned. "Wave your wand and off you go!"

Draco scowled, feeling suddenly annoyed. "We don't need _cars_ to travel, that's for people like _you_ who want to destroy our planet."

Matthew looked uncomfortable. "You mean because of global warming and stuff? You one of those environmentalists?"

Draco glared at him. "No, I'm a human being who lives on Earth, and I'd quite like to breathe clean air, have food to eat, and avoid massive wildfires and flooding, thank you very much."

Matthew stuttered for a moment, and Molly Weasley suddenly cut in, looking coldly at Draco. "And _I'm_ a mother who lost one of her twin boys at the hands of _your_ people, and I'd quite like to have him back, thank you very much. We don't need Dark magic either, that's for people like _you_ who want to destroy our lives."

Draco stood up, feeling the blood drain from his face, but Kingsley stood just ask quickly and shoved him back down into his seat. "Molly, I hardly think now is the time..." started Professor McGonagall. The whole table had turned to watch.

"They're not _my_ people," Draco said in a low, dangerous voice, "But I would think that the woman who murdered my aunt Bellatrix would know that you don't need Dark magic to destroy lives."

"Bellatrix was about to kill my daughter!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed, her eyes flashing with rage, and her husband put a hand on her shoulder to try to calm her. Ginny and Andromeda looked equally uncomfortable.

"Mrs. Weasley, it wasn't his fault-" Hermione started, but Draco interrupted.

"And who knows who was about to murder the Death Eater who killed your son? It wasn't just _your_ side that was trying to protect themselves and their families!"

"Voldemort wasn't trying to protect anyone," said Potter loudly, "And that's what the difference is. You followed the wrong leader, Malfoy."

A tense silence fell. Teddy, who was oblivious to what was happening, giggled and banged his spoon against his plastic plate, red sparks flying from the tip of the spoon. Draco looked at his cousin, thinking of the little boy's dead half-breed parents.

"I know."

Suddenly his Dark Mark seared with pain, and he knew the bleeding had started again. He excused himself quickly and headed for the bathroom, trying to re-Heal the newly opened wounds under his bandage as he stared into his pale reflection in the mirror. If only they knew what 'his people' were going through right now... He didn't know that one of the Weasleys had died, _plenty_ of people had died in the Battle of Hogwarts, he couldn't keep track of every one of their stupid freckle-faced noses...

Hearing a muffled but heated argument coming from the direction of the kitchen, he made his way quietly to the coat rack. He would just send an owl with his regards...

"Not thinking of leaving, are you, nephew?" It was Andromeda.

He turned around. "Well, clearly no one wants me here," he said tersely, donning his cloak. "Did you honestly expect to invite both Malfoys and Weasleys and not witness several explosions?"

Andromeda looked disappointed. "Well, I won't stop you from going if you want, but I was hoping that, for Teddy's sake, you all could stay," she said. "Mrs. Weasley nearly left too, but the others calmed her down... she knows you weren't to blame, but she's dealing with the loss of her son in her own way. I'm dealing with the loss of my daughter too, and for me, having all our relatives and friends here together means more to me than you can imagine..."

A tear rolled down Andromeda's cheek and she seemed to choke up, unable to finish her thoughts. She suddenly reminded Draco powerfully of his mother, as if Narcissa's personality was shining through her Bellatrix-like features.

"All right," he gave in finally, taking off his cloak. "I'll give it one more try."

By the time they returned, conversation had resumed. Draco sat down without a word and ate quickly, gulping down a glass of wine, hoping it would calm his nerves. Finally he found the courage to look up at the Weasleys, who were also eating quietly. "I'm sorry for your loss," he said, hoping it would suffice, glancing at Andromeda.

Arthur Weasley put down his fork and held out a hand to Draco. "Thanks, son. And I'm sorry for yours." Draco was surprised; he hadn't expected them to return his apologies. He shook Arthur's hand, trying to mask his instinctive disgust, and Molly sniffed and wiped tears from her eyes, still looking down at her plate. Hermione, Professor McGonagall, and Andromeda were all smiling, and Harry, Ginny, and Dean looked disbelievingly at the scene in front of them.

Ted clapped his hands. "Well! A merry Christmas it is indeed! Time for some presents for little Teddy, I think! Shall we?"

Everyone followed Ted into the magically enlarged living room. It was incredible watching the little boy change his face to imitate that of whoever gave him the latest gift; he changed his skin color to match Dean's and Kingsley's dark complexions, his hair turned a light blonde as he blew sloppily into Draco's snakophone, he was red and freckled at every Weasley sweater and scarf, and he even made a scar appear on his forehead when he opened Harry's broom. "Bwoom!" he cried at the last gift, and hopped onto it and started zooming around the room to everyone's delight.

* * *

The party was winding down; Kingsley, McGongagall, Dean, and Charlie said their goodbyes, followed soon by Matthew. Harry, who had had a bit too much firewhiskey, had pulled Ginny to her feet and started dancing with her to the Christmas music floating through the room. Teddy zoomed around on the broom until he crashed haphazardly into the Christmas tree, falling off and promptly bursting into a wailing cry. "Clumsy just like your mother!" said Andromeda lovingly, and she and Ted picked him up to put him to bed.

Harry and Ginny laughed and resumed their sloppy dancing as Mr. and Mrs. Weasley watched happily, their arms around each other. Hermione, however, was staring blankly at the crackling fireplace, hugging her knees to her chest, lost in thought.

The sight stirred something in Draco, and, giving into his own wine-induced impulses, he walked over to the couch she was sitting on and flopped down next to her. "Look at them, Potter has no idea how to dance, he's practically tripping over her," he drawled.

She blinked, coming out of her trance. "Sorry, what?"

Draco smirked and held out his hand to her. "Come on, let's show them how it's done."

She looked at him disbelievingly, but took his hand. Pulling her onto the carpeted floor, he began leading the dance that they had both learned years ago for the Yule Ball. Eventually her eyes refocused and she frowned as she registered his previous remark.

"Harry dances just fine."

"Compared to me? _Really_? Or were you just comparing him to Weasley?"

"Shut up about Ron."

"I didn't say which Weasley, you just made assumptions. Maybe I was talking about Potter's redhead partner over there," he said, quietly enough that Potter and Ginny wouldn't overhear.

She looked at him with disgust as he spun her around and took her waist again. "Why am I even dancing with you?"

"I don't know, why _are_ you dancing with me? Trying to move on from Weasley?"

She moved to pull away from him, but he caught her and smoothly bent her momentum into a graceful dip. All those formal parties at the Manor were useful for _something_ , at least. Hermione glared as he pulled her upright again. "I told you to shut up about -"

"I visited my parents too, for Christmas," he blurted out in a rushed whisper, finally sharing what had been on his mind for the last several hours. "In Azkaban." He gulped down the emotion rising to his throat. "They didn't recognize me either."

Hermione's expression instantly softened, her wide brown eyes snapping to his, and Draco felt her pulse quicken in her wrist. She finally relaxed into the dance, no longer resisting his lead, and Draco felt an intoxicating rush of warmth sweep through his system as she allowed the distance between them to close slightly.

"I - you - you were _eavesdropping_..." Her voice held accusation but no anger, and when he spun her around again, she resumed staring deeply into his eyes.

"I was standing right there, having to watch you and Potter merge together like a pair of mating flobberworms. I couldn't exactly help it," he retorted, but his own voice came out soft and low, and he couldn't seem to take his eyes off her beautiful, tempting, Muggle-born face, that now was shaping itself into a gentle smile. They danced in silence, in understanding.

As the song ended, Draco bowed to Hermione. "Thank you, m'lady." She bowed her head quickly in return and hurried to join the Weasleys, who looked at her in relief, as if she had just survived an encounter with a wild Acromantula.

Draco chuckled to himself as he went to grab his cloak, bade goodbye to Ted and Andromeda, and went on his way, feeling giddy and rebellious. In the span of one day, he had Apparated all across the globe, shook hands with both Harry Potter and Arthur Weasley, held a half-breed cousin in his arms, sat at a dinner table with a muggle and a goblin, and danced with a brilliant Muggle-born witch. This would certainly be a Christmas to remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my favorite chapter of the book by far, as it's the one that most accurately represents some of my personal experiences - I'm an introvert and I channeled all my awkward encounters at parties into these scenes.


	19. Back to the Castle

It was odd, returning to the castle the day after Christmas, without Harry and Ron by her side. Hermione used the quiet days before school resumed to catch up on schoolwork, research mirror enchantments, and explore the castle, but found herself feeling lonely in the evenings, missing Ron's long arms and replaying their breakup in her mind.

The next Saturday morning, she found herself wandering back to Bugby's Bean, smiling as she remembered how much she liked the little shop. The shop owner, Lawrence Bugby, was glad to see an old customer, and even gave her a free drink to welcome her back. Sitting down at the large table, the only customer in the place, she began to read.

"Mind if I sit here?"

Hermione jumped at the voice that she had secretly been hoping to hear today, but looked up at Draco's wary, pale face, her reply ready. She took a deep breath.

"You risked your personal safety last April to save my life from your own relatives, the least I can do is offer you a chair." She had been thinking about it quite a bit. As stubborn as she was, it was unreasonable not to be grateful for the countercurse, even if she disagreed with his motivations.

Draco's features relaxed slightly, and he sat down slowly. "I've thought about it a lot," he said. "I still don't know if I would have-"

"It doesn't matter," said Hermione quickly, "It doesn't matter, what might have been..."

Draco shook his head emphatically. "No, shut up for two seconds and let me say this. I don't know if I would have saved you anyway, that night. But if it happened right now, today, I'd save you no matter what your blood looked like."

Hermione swallowed, her throat feeling suddenly dry. "And why is that?"

He seemed at a loss for words, for a moment. "Because you're worth it."

She paused. "And not because it's the right thing to do?" she pressed on, determined to ignore the fluttering of butterflies that had returned to her stomach and the heat rising to her cheeks. "You wouldn't save another Muggle-born besides me, in the same position?"

Draco frowned, then looked annoyed. "Well, it depends, doesn't it? You didn't protest and try to save Voldemort when he was being attacked, because you didn't think he was worth it, right? Maybe there'd be a Muggle-born that is better off dead."

"Point taken," she conceded, and Draco relaxed again. "You know, I've been thinking about what you said, too, about Muggles over-using their own technology and destroying the world in the process. I had been so caught up with fighting Dark wizards that it was easy to forget how many, well, 'Dark muggles' there are. The ones that are driving the cars or heating their house with oil or flying in airplanes aren't the problem, they're just doing their best to get by. But the ones that are lobbying the Muggle leaders to stop research into cleaner technology, just so that they can make more money selling oil, _those_ people are the problem."

Draco considered, for a moment. "Perhaps. But still, couldn't Muggles just move closer to their workplace so they don't have to drive, or heat their house with that solar panel stuff?"

Hermione couldn't help but smile. She was hoping he'd say something like this. "Do you eat meat, Draco?"

"What does that have to do with anything? I just eat what the house-elves serve."

"The meat industry is one of the biggest contributers to global warming, both through the methane gas released by the animals and the meat processing plants. They also sometimes overgraze on perfectly good farmland and ruin the soil. So why do you eat so much meat?"

Draco was quiet for a long moment, and Hermione silently awarded herself five points against the Slytherin.

"I didn't know," he said finally. "I didn't know the meat industry was so bad, but yes, it makes sense..."

"The Pureblood Post doesn't talk about that, then? It only tells its readers about the destruction caused by Muggle habits, and not by Wizards, right?"

Draco put his head in his hands. "The _Pureblood Post_ is a load of rubbish propaganda, I know that." He looked up at her, narrowing his eyes, and added, "But so is the _Daily Prophet._ "

Hermione nodded vigorously. "We're in agreement there. The _Prophet_ just seems to be an arm of the Ministry, and whoever is in charge gets to decide what's in the news."

"So you're saying cars are like meat," said Draco, going back to her previous point. "That Muggles drive cars because they're just not willing to give them up, or are unaware of how much destruction they're causing."

Hermione nodded, and Draco gazed out the window, his eyes unfocusing, scratching his pointed chin. "Maybe, maybe you're right," he continued. "But it doesn't change the fact that _something_ about our relationship with Muggles has to change very soon. Their technology is getting ridiculous. The amount of magic it takes to conceal places like Hogwarts from sattelite imagery... we're going to be found out, Hermione, and I'm very worried about what's going to happen to our kind when we are. I'd rather be in a position of power at that point, so they don't just wipe us out."

She frowned. Five points to the Slytherin. She hadn't thought of Muggle satellites.

"You might be right," she conceded finally. "Fights over oil are causing a lot of Muggle wars these days, too, it turns out. I've always been of the opinion that wizards should stay out of Muggle affairs, but, well, things are getting dangerous in the Muggle world. Now... I don't know."

He raised his eyebrows and smiled slightly. "You really did think about it."

"So did you." She smiled back.

Draco opened his books and they both got to work. She somehow found it easier to concentrate now that he was there, sitting across from her, and flipped through page after page of _Magical Refractions, Reflections, and Dispersions_ , absorbed in the fascinating study of mirror and crystal enchantments.

There was no Ron, no Harry, no Ginny to take her away, and so they studied together for hours, occasionally asking each other a question on spell terminology or technique. Draco was unusually knowledgeable about the art of magically enchanting ordinary objects, and Hermione found that she could help him with almost any question about charms and transfiguration that he threw her way. They ordered sandwiches and coffees and teas, watched the sun set outside the window, and finally Lawrence shooed them out at closing time.

They walked back to the castle together, Draco glancing up at the stars every now and then. "Who was she?" Hermione asked, her voice cutting through the cold, quiet, wintry air. "The girl from your memory, the one that the boggart turned into."

Draco tensed. "Just a muggle." Hermione said nothing, waiting. "A muggle girl that I used to play with, when I was little. Until Father put a stop to it, that is."

Sensing that it wasn't the time to probe, she decided not to pursue the topic further. When they reached the main gates, Draco suddenly stopped and reached out an arm to turn her to face him.

"I have a proposition."

"A proposition?"

"Yes, as in, a deal. I'll help you if you help me."

Hermione felt her blood run cold, remembering the last time she made such a deal with Draco Malfoy, vowing not to make the same mistake again.

"I don't make deals with Purebloods," she joked, but it didn't sound funny when the words came out.

Draco winced. "Listen. You're trying to find this mirror and retrieve your parents' memories from it, right? I know a lot about magical enchantments of objects, my father was friends with Borgin and Burkes, I picked up quite a bit along the way."

Hermione folded her arms. "And what do you expect in return?"

He hesitated. "Promise not to tell anyone?"

"You know I can't promise that until I know what it is."

Draco glowered at her. "Fine, fumble along all on your own without Dumbledore around to help you this time, and never retrieve your parents' stupid muggle memories! Is that what you want?" He pushed through the gate and stormed down the hall, leaving Hermione staring after him.

Twenty paces later, he turned back to face her, somewhat calmer but his expression still steely. "I'm not trying to assassinate anyone this time, I'm not on some kind of posthumous mission for the Dark Lord. What I need from you is just for me. And I can help you in return. But I'd need you to promise to keep everything between us. Use that massive brain of yours and think about it, all right?" Then he stalked off towards Slytherin tower.

Hermione blinked, speechless, then slowly made her way towards Gryffindor tower. How could she promise not to tell anyone something when she didn't know what that something was? Then again, she would promise in an instant if it were Harry or Ron, since she implicitly trusted them, was friends with them... but how could she trust Draco, after everything he had done in the past? Sharing a table with him was one thing. Keeping his darkest secrets was another.

She found herself in her bedroom without really remembering the journey up to it, only vaguely aware of some counter-jinxes she had to cast on the stairs to her room that Alexa had probably jinxed. What could Draco possibly need from her, and her alone? And would he really be able to help her with mirror enchantments? Was he holding back in his replies to her questions at Bugby's Bean, so as to withhold power that he could wield for his own purposes?

Suddenly, a scream pierced the air.

Hermione ran outside of her room towards the noise. It was coming from Harry's room. She threw open the unlocked door to find Ginny, just back from the Burrow, kneeling on the floor, her face in her hands. It was very rare to see Ginny in tears, and Hermione found herself dreading the worst. Surely nothing had happened to Harry or Ron already?

"Ginny?" Hermione bent down to put her arms around her friend. "Ginny, what is it?"

"It's gone! Someone was in here, someone took it!"

"What's gone?" Hermione looked around, and a more careful inspection of the room showed that something was not right. Parchment was strewn around in a messier way than even Harry or Ginny would ever leave it, drawers had been hastily thrown open, clothes ripped off their hangers lying on the floor near the closet.

"My broom, the one Fred had gotten me for my birthday last year!" Ginny took a deep breath. "It was really expensive, you know, Fred and George were doing well with their joke shop. It was just... it was from _him_ , you know, and so I really valued it. And it looks like the crystal luck charm that Luna gave me last year is also gone." Suddenly Ginny's tears turned into her more usual anger, and she clenched her fists and pounded them into the door with a cry of rage.

Hermione looked around the room, thinking. Both items were extremely valuable, fitting with the pattern that had plagued students all year. There was a thief at Hogwarts, a thief that was after expensive items. Suddenly her thoughts turned back to Draco's mysterious proposition. Did he know something that they didn't?

"Harry warned me not to use that Pensieve, he thought something was up with it," said Ginny, sitting down on the bed. "And I definitely re-watched memories with both of those objects in them, in the Room of Recovery. I'm such a bloody idiot."

Hermione looked at Ginny in surprise, not even aware that she had been using the Room of Recovery. The fiery redhead always seemed so strongheaded, so indestructible... but the war had broken down everyone to some degree. "But how could the Pensieve be responsible? It's not like it can break into people's rooms and steal things."

Ginny shrugged. "You know how Harry is, he always has these gut intuitions about things, and half the time they're right. He just noticed that a lot of the kids who were missing things were the same ones as those who were using the Pensieve a lot, or who Alexa claimed were breaking into the Room of Recovery at night."

None of it made any sense. Hermione did her best to reassure Ginny that eventually the thief would be caught, then headed to her own room, bolting her door behind her and shaking with a panic of her own. If there really was a link between the Pensieve and objects going missing, then it was more important than ever that she find her parents' memories before the thief did.

* * *

Draco couldn't sleep again, and wandered down to the Room of Recovery, enjoying the usual challenge of unlocking Alexa's enchantments. He needed the distraction. Why was it so important to him that only Hermione know about what he was trying to do, anyway? Why did she feel like the only person he could trust right now?

He poured fragmented memories of the Tonks' Christmas party into the Pensieve, diving into it and losing himself in the experience. Memory-Hermione's expression when she came down the steps, shaking hands with Mr. Weasley, holding little Teddy in his arms, showing up Potter on the dance floor... it had all been a rather pleasant evening, and he found himself calming down, nearly ready for another attempt at potionless sleep.

He was replacing his memories into his mind when he heard the lock click on the door, his own locking enchantments being undone. His heart pounded in his chest and he held out his wand, though there was only one person clever enough to decode his own work...

A familiar bushy-haired, wild-eyed witch burst into the Room of Recovery. "You didn't watch any more memories, did you?" Hermione panted, out of breath.

"Must you always butt in to my private thoughts? Or only on your terms?" Draco scowled.

"Something's up with the Pensieve, or with someone who uses it, the thief must be seeing the memories that students watch somehow," she fretted. "All the valuable items going missing lately, the thief who's been stealing them, there might be a connection. Don't use it again, I'm going to bring this up to Professor McGonagall, I just came here to take a look myself..."

And muttering to herself as she did when she was concentrating in class, Hermione started performing basic diagnostic spells on the Pensieve. Finally she backed up and shook her head. "Nothing obvious, but it doesn't rule out the possibility." She spun around to face him. "It wasn't you, was it?"

"Who, this thief you're talking about? Why would I have any need for other students' shoddy knick knacks?"

Hermione nodded absently. "Of course, of course it's not you. Just ruling things out. But if you saw anything that you value in that Pensieve, guard it carefully. Someone might be watching."

Draco, suddenly seeing an opportunity to soften her up, sauntered forward and put a protective hand on her shoulder. "I'll do my best." She stiffened at his hold, then realized what he was implying.

"You... saw me in the Pensieve? You value _me_?"

"That depends," he put on his best Slytherin smirk, looking down at her. "Are you willing to help me? Make the deal?"

Hermione folded her arms and pulled away from him. "Yes." She glanced at the Pensieve. "But let's not discuss it in here."

Draco nodded and led her to Slytherin tower. It was obvious to both of them that the most secure place in the castle was Draco's room - the place where no one but Draco wanted to be, these days.

Hermione's eyes roved around his bedroom when they entered. He saw her gaze linger on the Slytherin crest mounted on his wall, the assortment of immaculately polished enchanted items he had accumulated over the years, the empty Sleeping Draught vial near his bed, and his Quidditch broom in the corner. Feeling suddenly self-conscious, he closed the door and lit the Slytherin crest with his signature green flames to brighten the dimly lit dormitory.

"So. Promise not to spread the word, then, about what I'm about to ask?"

Hermione swallowed, but looked him in the eye, her pale face and brown hair glowing in the green firelight. "I swear on Godric's grave. You promise not to tell anyone about my parents?"

"I swear to secrecy on Salazar's tomb."

"Promise Charm?"

"If you wish."

They raised their wands and waved them together to bind themselves with a Promise Charm, nothing so binding as an Unbreakable Vow, but one that caused extreme headaches and other painful side effects if one were to contemplate breaking it.

"All right, what is it you want help with?"

Draco's heart beat hard in his chest, his throat dry, and finally worked up the courage to say it. "I want to remove my Dark Mark."

As he had dreaded, Hermione gasped and turned paler still, glancing down at his left forearm in disgust. "I don't know if I can... I mean, that's really Dark magic... I've never..."

Draco turned around angrily, staring at the flaming Slytherin crest. "Forget it, you're just like the rest of them. Get out."

"No, wait, I just meant-"

"Do you have ANY idea, what it's like?" he hissed, whipping back around, the words tumbling out of his mouth, fury rising to his chest. "To be branded with something that was never a choice of your own, to have everyone look at you like you're some kind of _freak_ , to have nurses refuse to Heal you and peers turn their backs on you, to have little children run away from you on sight? I _have_ to be rid of this, but no one will help me because even YOU, the famous elf-loving, equality-SPEWing war heroine, the woman who reduced my sentence in Azkaban, can't stand to even look at it! So I'll do it myself, and to _hell_ with your stupid Muggle parents! Get OUT!"

He was breathing heavily, even more infuriated at the sight of Hermione standing quite still, with her arms folded across her chest, smiling smugly, completely unaffected by his rant. "What are you just _standing_ there for?" he yelled, but his resolve had weakened and he sat down on his chair, looking at the floor.

"You really don't think I have any idea, what that's like?" her voice was almost a whisper, steady but intense. "To be looked upon with surprise whenever I answer a question correctly in class, even by the teachers, because of something - my blood status - that was never a choice of my own? To be insulted and hexed and attacked and tortured by Purebloods who think they're superior, to listen to little children being told by their parents to stay away from _my sort_? To hear 'wow, that's really good _for a Muggle-born_ ,' over and over and over again? You don't think that the best friend of Harry Potter has any idea what it's like to be judged for a scar that you never asked for?"

Draco felt more ashamed than he ever had in his life. Hermione brandished her wand at the green fire, turning the flames bright red. "I can't remove my blood status, Draco Malfoy. I can't un-be a Granger. Luckily for you, it might be possible to remove your Dark Mark, to un-do what _you_ never asked for." She Transfigured the Slytherin serpent into a roaring Gryffindor lion. "And _because_ I know what it's like, I am willing to help you. I am willing to enter this arrangement. But only if you understand, from this point forward, what a lucky, spoiled little hypocritical bastard you are."

He watched as she added the finishing touches to her Gryffindor crest. "How do you deal with it?" he asked finally. "Being a Mud- I mean, Muggle-born?"

"I surround myself with friends who don't judge me for it, and avoid the people who do," she sighed. "And lately I've been wondering if that's the right thing to do, hiding among like-minded people. How are other wizards going to learn to look past their prejudice without being exposed to people like me? This is exactly the kind of toxic polarization of ideologies that the House system encourages. And so here I am, standing in a Slytherin's bedroom, making a deal that I can't easily back out of."

With a single wave of her wand, the Gryffindor banner Transfigured itself back into its original Slytherin form, green flames and all. "The House crests are just symbols, Draco, and your Mark is just a mark. I'm _trying_ not to judge you by these things, I really am. And I would hope, as we enter this agreement, that you try not to judge my efforts based on the fact that my parents are Muggles, but rather on the fact that they are my parents."

He felt that was a little unfair, given that he had already indicated that he understood completely what she was going through based on his own experiences with his parents being in Azkaban. One of the main reasons he wanted to remove his Dark Mark was the hope that it would help him conjure a patronus, to get his mother back, even if through bars. Then again, he had just called them her 'stupid Muggle parents'...

"All right," he said, standing. "It's a deal." Hermione beamed and shook his hand enthusiastically.

"Can I take a look, then?" she moved to reach for his forearm.

He snatched it back. "Not yet, not today. Bugby's Bean on Saturdays? We can do research in the afternoon, then experiment with what we've found in the evening afterwards, here." Draco hoped that the bleeding would stop if he gave it another week.

"Sounds like a plan. Saturday it is."

She left him to his green firelight and immaculately arranged bedroom, feeling that he had just entered into a far bigger deal than he had bargained for.


	20. Looking up

Things were looking up. Thursday evenings were as fun as ever, as Hermione and Ginny explored the nooks and crannies of the castle dungeons' new South Wing. It was faster, working with Ginny, who didn't dawdle by old artifacts the way Harry did, and didn't bungle her attempts at map-making nearly as often as Ron. Ginny was also a reasonable study partner, occasionally asking Hermione for homework help but never begging to copy outright.

McGonagall had been doubtful when Hermione and Ginny went to her with their theory about the Pensieve, but she had instructed Giovanni Bellavita to temporarily close the Room of Recovery and perform a full magical examination of the Pensieve. It couldn't have been closed soon enough, in Hermione's opinion - she had had to step in to break up a nasty duel between the second-year Slytherin boy Max Carrow, the one that had shouted at McGonagall on the first day, and Gryffindor second-year Preston Logan, who each blamed the other for stealing things from their rooms over Christmas break. Even Alexa seemed to be happy about the closure, as she was still certain that many students had been breaking in after hours.

And then there were Saturdays, the highlight of every week. She and Draco had quickly fallen into a steady routine of study, research, and experimentation. Whichever arrived at Bugby's Bean later would politely ask to join the other at the table, who would in turn respond in the form _You did X for me, the least I can do is offer you a chair._ It was amazing how many things they could find to thank each other for...

_You reached out to me as a friend this year when I needed it most, despite years of me taunting and tormenting you, the least I can do is offer you a chair..._

_You asked me to dance when I was feeling down and made my Christmas a happier one, the least I can do is offer you a chair..._

_You saved me from having to partner with Mulciber in Potions, the least I can do is offer you a chair..._

They _had_ been partnering in Potions, and worked together fantastically, always getting top marks from Slughorn. Draco also used the class time to deliberately flirt with Hermione, intentionally brushing his arm against hers as he leaned to reach for an ingredient, whispering snarky observations about the other students' stupidity in her ear, complimenting her cutting technique before one-upping her with his own knife. It was a very different kind of attention than the worshipful adoration and bumbling obliviousness of Ron Weasley, and Hermione found herself blushing often, flirting back easily.

And he was _clever_. Draco Malfoy was very intelligent, far more so than his grades usually showed. He was very insightful when it came to object enchantments, and the two of them figured out how to capture a reflection in a portrait, how to fix one side of a broken item using the reflection of its other side (it involved three mirrors carefully aligned around the object and some very complicated spellwork), and were now working on encasing objects in mirrors and moving ones' own reflection from mirror to mirror.

If only she could be as helpful when it came to his Dark Mark...

* * *

Things were looking up. The thievery had indeed seemed to stop once the Room of Recovery closed, and the atmosphere at Hogwarts was a little cheerier. Draco's fellow Slytherins had even started to warm to him again, though he knew they were mostly warming to his vast Malfoy inheritance. Fifth, sixth, and seventh year Slytherin girls would doll themselves up and sidle up to him at the lunch table. "Draco," they'd croon, "How are your parents, you must _miss_ them, I miss mine..." "Draco, are you going to Hogsmeade this weekend? You don't have to go study with _her_..."

One girl was so brazen as to throw her arms around his neck and sit herself on his lap one Saturday morning at breakfast, and he smirked and wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Well, don't you look beautiful today, Cassie."

"Aww, thank you, Drakey! I thought you'd need a little attention now and then, everyone is so _mean_ to you these days..."

"Cassie, my dear, would you like to come to Hogsmeade with me today?" He said it loudly enough so that Hermione, who he saw was glancing at them out of the corner of her eye, her fist tight around her fork, could hear.

"Oh, Drakey, I'd love to!" sighed Cassie.

Draco grinned evilly. "Well, isn't that too bad. I'm already taken." Then he lifted her off of him and dumped her on the bench, leaving Cassie to glare furiously at him as he swept out of the Great Hall to head to the gym, winking at Hermione, who relaxed her grip on her fork and blushed a deep red.

The truth was he was falling madly in love with Hermione Granger.

He didn't care what the other Slytherins thought, he didn't even care what his mother would think... Hermione was intelligent, radiant, so bloody good all the time, and he was finally, rebelliously, allowing himself to look past her Muggle-born status and just enjoy her company. Wednesdays and Saturdays were the highlights of his week, and he loved the way she'd blush when he'd brush her arm in Potions, the way his skin tingled when she ran her fingers over his Dark Mark in his bedroom, biting her lip in worry at his slowly healing Diffindo wounds, the way she delighted at their success with mirror enchantments.

She hadn't laughed when he told her he could not cast a Patronus, but instead helped him design an eternal-Patronus device with the help of a few basic Muggle technologies. They designed a circuit that could capture a Patronus in a loop, so that it wouldn't fade even when the conjurer lifted her wand. The entire device could then be magically shrunken to fit in the palm of one's hand.

The next morning, he glared silently at the sausages in front of him for several minutes. _Do you eat meat, Draco? The meat industry is one of the biggest contributors to global warming..._

Finally, he pushed the sausages away and scooped eggs and potatoes and toast onto his plate.

* * *

On Valentines' Day weekend, he used the extra day off to visit Azkaban and give his mother the eternal Patronus device. ("It's not _technically_ against the law, to give a gift like that to a prisoner," Hermione had said. "I suppose it's against the spirit of the use of Dementors, but I never thought they were any good for teaching prisoners a lesson anyway, they just make you sad and don't let you _think_ about what you've done...")

And his mother had finally looked him in the eyes, recognized him, holding Hermione's revolving shrunken otter close to her chest. "Draco, it's you! Oh Draco, are you taking care of yourself out there?"

"Yes, Mother, and I'm taking care of you, too."

They had touched through the bars, kissed, cried, and he promised to return to visit often. Stumbling out into the pouring February rain, he took a deep breath and Disapparated, back to Hogwarts, back to Hermione, resolving to do everything he could to return the favor.


	21. Nightmare on Valentines' Day

"Be my Valentine?" Ginny joined Hermione at the breakfast table, heavy raindrops falling from the enchanted ceiling and vanishing just above their heads. "Both of our boyfriends are gone today, let's fill in for each other."

Hermione laughed. "Well, _your_ boyfriend is away, and I'm single altogether, it's not like Ron and I are going to get back together for Valentines' day."

"Oh, I wasn't talking about Ron. Isn't Malfoy away visiting his mum in Azkaban?"

"Draco's not my boyfriend," said Hermione quickly, "We're just... helping each other with stuff. I can't talk about it," she added, as a Promise Charm headache threatened to surface.

Ginny raised an eyebrow. "If you say so. I'll bet you ten Galleons that he'll either kiss you or ask you out before NEWTs."

Hermione put down her spoon and massaged her temples. "Ginny, this is between us, okay? But I'm really starting to like him, and it's weirding me out. What if he _does_ ask me out?"

"Well, Ron's not here to murder him, so I don't see what the problem is," said Ginny, shrugging her long red hair behind her shoulder. "He really must have changed, huh?"

Hermione considered. "He's not really all that different, but I think his opinion has changed on a lot of things, including me I guess."

"Perfect. He's your boyfriend, and he's away. So will you be my Valentine?"

Hermione laughed again. "Sure, Ginny, let's go on a date in the castle and search for a lost mirror." Ginny grinned back.

After finishing their breakfast, the two women left the Great Hall arm in arm. "I have a feeling it's going to be today," said Ginny. "There's not much of the castle left, isn't it just the side corridors in the South Wing dungeons now?"

"Yes, that's it, if it's not there then it's not in the castle." Hermione was dreading that possibility.

"It'll be there," said Ginny firmly as they made their way down to the dungeons, sounding suddenly very much like Harry. "And when we find it, I'm off, because I'll have finished this map, and so there's no reason left for me to be at the school anymore."

"You're leaving Hogwarts?" said Hermione, aghast. "Before NEWTS?"

"Oh, I didn't tell you? George and I are moving Weasley's Wizard Wheezes to Hogsmeade and setting up shop there. I'm going to be Fred, basically. It'll be an awesome job, making joke shop items is actually really challenging. I had to stay here to finish the map though, we're going to sell maps of Hogwarts secret passageways at a _very_ steep price."

Hermione was quiet, not sure how she felt about being left at Hogwarts by the last of her closest friends.

"I'll still be very close by of course, it'll just be Hogsmeade," Ginny continued, as if reading her mind. "And it'll make it easier for Harry to quickly Apparate in and visit me now and then."

"That makes sense, I suppose, but you only have a few months left before NEWTS, aren't you worried about giving up that opportunity?" Hermione asked as she unlocked a door at the end of a long side corridor.

"Nah, I don't really want-"

Ginny's reply was cut off by a gasp from Hermione. A great, broken mirror stood in the middle of the room, its cover laying torn on the ground, giant cracks radiating from a smashed hole in the center of the glass.

Hermione raised a shaking wand. It couldn't be real, it couldn't...

" _Riddikulus!_ "

Nothing happened.

She ran up to the mirror, hoping the broken fragments would still show her deepest desire, ready to cast every reflection charm she and Draco had discovered... Hermione's distorted reflection looked back at her sadly, holding a crystal orb in each hand, then dropped the orbs and let them smash apart on the ground.

Broken crystal suddenly shattered everywhere beside Hermione in the real world, the fragments of the balls that had once held her parents' memories appearing before her. She felt numb, empty, disbelieving. She would never get her parents back. Not now, not ever.

* * *

"Oi, Snake-o!" He hated that nickname. It was Ginny Weasley, ambushing him just as he re-entered the blissfully dry Hogwarts castle from the pouring rain. Must all Weasleys be so infuriating?

"You know about Hermione's parents, right?" she asked.

Draco suddenly forgot his annoyance. "Yes, why?"

"We found the mirror, and it was smashed in, just like her boggart. It looked magically done, like someone was trying to take something from the mirror by force."

He felt panic rising in his chest. "And the memories? Were the orbs broken too?"

Ginny winced. "Completely, smashed to bits."

"Where is she?"

"That's what I was hoping you could tell me. She was inconsolable afterwards, and in the afternoon she went to visit Hagrid, but then she never came back. I've been looking for her for hours, but I have to go visit my brother now and I was hoping you could find her, make sure she's all right?"

"I'll find her." He hoped. "And I'll send you an owl when I do."

Ginny looked surprised at his consideration. "Thanks, Snake-o."

Hermione wasn't at Hagrid's, wasn't at Bugby's, wasn't in her room. Draco realized that he had skipped dinner, but kept wandering through the castle, even visiting the old Room of Recovery to see if she was hiding in there. Eventually exhaustion from his own day took hold of him and he resolved to send out a search party in the morning if Hermione hadn't turned up by then. Staggering into his room, he changed into sleepwear, magically drying his robes with his wand.

A great crack of lightning ripped through the stormy sky, the thunder booming simultaneously. Draco looked out and realized the lightning had appeared to hit the Astronomy Tower...

He sprinted barefoot down the Weather-Stabilized skybridge. The Astronomy Tower was the only non-weather-stabilized place in the castle, and he suspected the lightning bolt had been magically conjured. He paused as he saw a small feminine figure screaming silently into the storm, her cries of anguish muffled by her own _Silencio_ charm, water-resistant magical red flames surrounding her in a circle, casting another lightning bolt of fury into the raining night sky.

" _Protego!_ " Draco cast a protective charm about himself as he stepped onto the tower, the wet floor chilling his bare feet, and approached the witch warily. "Hermione?" he called, stepping over the flames into her _Silencio_ circle, the wind whipping his hair into his eyes.

" _Stupefy!_ " she cried, her spell ricocheting off of his Shield Charm. " _Petrificus Totalus! Impedimenta!_ "

She cast a number of completely ineffective spells in Draco's direction before dropping to her knees, putting her face in her hands and breaking down in sobs. Feeling that it was finally safe to do so, Draco removed his Shield Charm and crouched down to put a hand on her shoulder. She was shaking violently. "Ginny told me," he started. "I know... I wish it wasn't..."

"I hate you!" she yelled, punching at his chest. "I hate you and every one of your stupid Death Eater friends!" Draco let go of her and backed up quickly, a lead weight sinking into his gut.

"Hermione, please, I never wanted..."

"I've already lost Tonks, Lupin, Dobby, Fred, Mad-eye, and Sirius, and now I've lost my own family, _Malfoy_. Don't you DARE _Hermione_ me! Our deal is _over_! You saw _your_ mum today, didn't you? But I had to lose my own parents because of your people, and now they're _never_ coming back, so you can keep your bloody Dark Mark for all I care!"

"THEY'RE NOT MY PEOPLE!" he screamed back, the lead weight in his stomach now burning with a hot rage, his forearm searing in pain, rainwater dripping from the ends of his hair. "And I'd NEVER ask you to fulfill your end of the bargain when I've failed in mine!"

Hermione glared at him, her eyes blazing with anger, tears and raindrops streaking down her face. They stared at each other, breathing heavily, thunder rumbling in the distance.

"Damn right, you failed." Hermione extinguished her flames and stormed off towards Gryffindor tower. Draco was tempted to hex her behind her back, he was so furious, but stalked off back to his room. Slamming his door behind him, he extinguished the lights and cast a strong Silencing charm. He couldn't let her see him cry.


	22. Tell Me Like This

"Dray-co, my man! Ready to get-a stronger?" Giovanni burst into the gym, smiling as ever. Draco wasn't sure how it was possible for someone to be that happy all the time.

He was distracted during their workout, tripping over weights, weakened from lack of food and sleep. "What's a matter, Dray-co? Girl troubles?"

"You could say that," he muttered, dropping to the ground and giving up on his set of pull-ups. "Do you know if-" he paused as a Promise Charm headache burned for a moment, considering how to change his wording so as not to give anything away about Hermione's situation. "Have you found anything wrong with that Pensieve?"

"Ah! Glad you asked! Just-a figured it out last night. Copy charm, my man, copy charm. Everyone's memories were-a being copied when they viewed them in the Pensieve, stored for later, someone could-a see them afterwards if-a they were the one to cast the copy charm."

"It's possible to copy memories?"

"Of course! With a good Pensieve like that, any memory can be-a copied. They're not-a quite the originals, but fairly close, if you return them to-a your mind you can-a still recall them!"

It was a glimmer of hope, and by Salazar he would cling to it. "I have to go." He ran towards the door, then paused at the doorway. "Do you know who it was, then? The thief?"

Giovanni shook his head. "Nah, left no trace, my man, wish I did. Alexa's been after me lately, though, it could-a be that prankster but I have no way of-a proving it." Alexa. He hardly knew anything about the woman, other than the fact that she was apparently trying to exact revenge on him for his torture of her daughter, and on Hermione for defending him at his trial. Feeling a fresh wave of guilt, Draco nodded and hurried out of the room, leaving a surprised Giovanni in his wake.

He showered and changed quickly, grabbing his broom and flying down to Bugby's Bean. _Please let her be there..._

His heart caught in his throat as he threw open the door and saw a bushy head of soft brown hair look up from a book. Unsure if he possessed the courage to approach her, Draco was relieved when she stood and walked towards him, not a trace of last night's anger on her face.

"I'm sorry," Hermione said, and conjured him a silver flower, much like the one he had given her many months ago. "I was just so angry, and so tired of losing people, and I know you lost so many people too, but just I didn't know how to deal with this... it wasn't your fault. I'm sorry."

Draco spun the flower around in his fingers and finally found his voice. "Did you know you could make copies of memories? In a Pensieve?" He tucked the flower behind her ear, deciding it suited her better. "Giovanni said that's how the thief had been seeing everyone's possessions and where they were."

"Copies..." Forgetting her anxious apologies, Hermione walked back to the table and sat down. Draco joined her without asking permission this time. Her eyes were unfocused, staring unseeing at the elf that was mopping the floor in the corner. "Of course! The mirror I was standing at!"

Draco furrowed his brow, confused, as Hermione jumped up from her chair. "Wait here, I'll be right back!" and she Disapparated on the spot, causing papers and quills to scatter through the air.

He sat stunned for a moment, then glanced at the cover of the book Hermione had been reading. He was amazed to see that it was _Dissolving Dark Enchantments_. Was she still researching possible ways to rid him of his Dark Mark? Why would she still want to help him, after he failed to help her? He sat quietly, waiting, sketching out a dragon on a piece of parchment as the clock ticked ever so slowly... if only he had the power to speed up time...

After an eternity of fifteen minutes and twenty-three seconds, Hermione popped back into the shop, beaming, the silver flower still tucked behind her ear. "Good news!" she exclaimed, "But... I don't want _anyone_ overhearing this time..." she looked around wildly, seeing Lawrence Bugby serving a customer and the elf cleaning a table.

Draco took her left hand in his. " _Legilimens Infirmus!_ " he said aloud, pointing his wand at their joined hands.

 _'Tell me like this,'_ he sent his thoughts through their joined arms, as he had the day he slowed time for her. _'No one else can hear, and it'll save us the time it takes to go back to the castle.'_

Hermione smiled and gripped his hand back. _'Good idea.'_

_'So what's this big news that you left me stranded here waiting for?'_

Hermione took an unnecessary deep breath, and poured a stream of thoughts towards him. _'Remember, in my memory, when I said to myself that I should know which mirror the orbs are hidden in? The obvious implication was the Mirror of Erised, it became famous for that after Dumbledore hid the Sorcerer's Stone in it. But I also was tapping on the mirror that I was standing in front of, which was actually the one in my parents' old living room! If there were two copies, that mirror had to be the other one!'_

Draco finally understood. _'Is that where you went just now?'_

_'Yes. The muggles who are living there now, I Confunded them into thinking it was Friday and they had to go to work, and I broke in and looked in the mirror with the revealing spells we came up with. There are copies of the memories were in there! Now we just have to figure out how to retrieve them... I must have put the originals in the Mirror of Erised first, then gone back to that other mirror to hide the copies inside and delete my memories!'_

Her eyes were shining with joy, and Draco wondered to himself if this was really the same woman who was throwing a magical temper tantrum on the Astronomy tower last evening.

Hermione gripped his hand tightly. _'Don't breathe a word of this to anyone. Whoever has been stealing things wanted to get to my parents' memories, probably for ransom.'_

 _'Of course,'_ he agreed. _'Giovanni suspects Alexa, by the way, but says he has no proof.'_

 _'Alexa?'_ Hermione frowned, twirling a lock of thick brown hair through her fingers. _'She seems to be motivated by revenge, but I wouldn't think of her as the petty theft type... unless she needs to sell off expensive items to afford her daughter's treatments?'_

 _'That's unlikely, the new ministry is paying for the treatments of everyone injured during the war,'_ responded Draco. _'I agree her little pranks are motivated by revenge... but have you noticed her attacks on us have stopped? Her new target seems to be Giovanni, of all people.'_

Hermione frowned. _'Giovanni? What would she have against him? He was in Italy, he wasn't even involved in the war...'_

They both trailed off into their own thoughts, just holding hands, not sharing thoughts with the other for a long while. Draco looked down at their hands, at the book resting on the table between them, at the flower in Hermione's ear.

"Look, were you - why were you reading this book today?" he asked aloud, and added in thought, _'I thought our deal was over?'_

She looked away from him, turning red from embarrassment. "Well, I had a new idea about the Dark Mark, last night when I couldn't sleep..." ( _'I was wrong to call it off last night, I didn't mean what I said...'_ )

"You don't have to do this, anymore," he said. ( _'You would have been justified in meaning it, if there was indeed no more hope for your parents...'_ ) "I'm not sure it's possible to remove it, we've tried everything, potions, salves, spells, you even knocked me out one evening and I didn't remember anything the next morning."

Hermione laughed and put her other hand on top of their joined hands. "I know I don't have to, but after working on it for so long, I didn't want to just give up." she said. ( _'I'm not the kind of person to back out of a promise just because I won't get anything in return...'_ )

Draco shook his head, unable to believe that Hermione was still trying to help him this morning. "You Gryffindors are so... irrationally _selfless_. Any good Slytherin would have called off the deal." ( _'I did see my mother yesterday, and she saw me, you already helped more than you know...'_ )

Hermione fidgeted nervously and pulled her hands away from his, breaking the mental contact. "Well," she said in a small voice, "It hasn't been _entirely_ selfless, actually..."

She pushed up her own sleeve to reveal the scarred word _Mudblood_ , which his aunt Bellatrix had so lovingly inflicted upon her arm. Draco's eyes widened in horror. The scar was puffy and swollen in places, and looked as though it had recently been bleeding. In all this time that they had spent studying his Dark Mark, casting spells and applying potions to his forearm, he had never once pushed up her sleeve, asked about her own scars. It simply wasn't part of the deal.

"I wasn't sure, at first," she said, "but I think this is similar magic. Surely Bellatrix would have known how to make a Dark Mark?"

Draco swallowed. "She was the one who branded me with it, she was my Binder." He didn't want to remember that day. He reached out to take her hand again, and slowly traced the fingers of his other hand up along her forearm. She closed her eyes, and he wondered if her skin tingled the way his always did... Merlin, it _felt_ the same, under his touch... the scars were twins, ugly physical reminders of the things they never chose to be...

Hermione returned his touch, their arms interlocking. "I started to suspect they were similar when you told me that yours would randomly start hurting at certain emotional moments or memories... and so then I started testing our experiements on myself, and it always had the exact same reaction. The things that helped you also helped me, and the things that made it worse aggravated mine."

Draco pulled back, but kept their hands joined. The weak Legilimens link was still partially active, he realized, as he felt disjointed thoughts from Hermione's direction travel up his arm.

"What was your new idea?"

Hermione turned the book to face him, opening it to a page she had earmarked, pointing to a passage. "You know how your Dark Mark hurts when you're upset, sometimes? I read a chapter on nonhealing wounds, it says that some Dark injuries will persist as long as the victim believes they deserve to bear them."

Draco raised an eyebrow and started to read the passage in the book. He was finding it hard to concentrate, thinking about Hermione's words, realizing why she had still screamed even while he had been muttering the countercurse to the Cruciatus - the pain of being branded with a Dark Mark had been unbearable... He had to re-read several sentences, finally absorbing some of the book's content, very old magic involving forgiveness, acceptance, remorse, the healing of a soul that had been split into a Horcrux...

Hermione had started absentmindedly tracing her thumb along the back of his hand, and he felt his mind go blank. He tried to keep his racing thoughts to himself, and closed his eyes involuntarily, moving his fingers to interlace with hers. _Merlin, I'm so far gone..._

They both jumped and let go of each other's hands as the door to Bugby's Bean burst open and Potter and Weasley sauntered in. Hermione turned pink and glanced nervously at Draco, and he wondered how many of his racing thoughts she had heard through the link.

* * *

"Hermione! There you are!" Harry strode towards to their table, looking relieved.

"Harry! Ron!" Hermione leapt up to hug Harry tightly. Harry grinned and hugged her back, while Ron's eyes swiveled back and forth between his ex-girlfriend and family nemesis, then to the spot on the table where their hands had been joined a moment before.

"What are you two doing here?" Hermione and Ron spoke at the same time, each referring to a different pair of people. They looked at each other, embarrassed, and fortunately Harry cut in, ignoring Ron.

"Ginny owled us, we heard about the mirror," he said, "And that she hadn't seen you, we just wanted to check..."

"Oh, right, I forgot to owl Ginny when _I_ found Hermione last night," Draco cut in coldly, earning himself shocked glares from Harry and Ron.

"I'm perfectly fine," Hermione said quickly, hoping to stave off whatever fight was threatening to start between the three wizards around her. "I was just really upset last night, I didn't mean to worry Ginny, and Draco did find me..."

" _Draco_?" repeated Ron. "You call Malfoy _Draco_ now? Why were you two just holding hands?" Harry gave him a look, and Ron looked slightly sheepish, but folded his arms and waited for Hermione's response.

She felt herself blushing, but had the perfect idea to solve several issues at once. "Here, I'll show you why. Take my hand, Ron." She looked him in the eyes, suddenly overwhelmed by memories and emotion, trying to ignore Harry's furrowed brow and Draco's suddenly tight grip on his wand.

Ron took her hand slowly, his blue eyes sad but curious, and she pointed her wand at their joined hands. " _Legilimens Infirmus!_ We're going to have a telepathic conversation, then I'll do the same with you next, Harry." Harry nodded, looking less confused, and she turned back to Ron.

_'We can talk this way, without anyone hearing us.'_

_'Woah. Like this?'_ Ron's thoughts traveled up her arm, a little more loudly and less distinct than Draco's, but clear enough.

 _'Good, yes! Now, here's what happened...'_ she filled him in quickly on everything that had happened, the broken mirror, the copies of the memories, her parents' old house. Ron listened to her thoughts quietly.

 _'But why was he helping you?'_ he asked finally.

 _'I can't tell you that,'_ replied Hermione regretfully. _'Ron, there's nothing between Draco and myself, I mean, not exactly, not yet...'_

 _'Don't try to hide it from me, Hermione, you like him now, I can tell you do,'_ thought Ron bitterly. _'I won't pretend to understand it, but I'll try to stay out of it if that's how it is...'_

Hermione raised her eyebrows. _'Ginny probably threatened you to get you to say that, didn't she?'_

 _'You're way too smart for your own good, Hermione,'_ replied Ron, a smile turning up at the corner of his mouth. _'But Ginny or no Ginny, I'm serious. And if he gives you ANY trouble, send me an owl and I'll be there faster than you can say "Ferret". I'm an Auror in training now, y'know.'_ He puffed out his chest slightly.

Hermione smiled at Ron, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Draco's sketched dragon roar aggressively in their direction from the parchment, while Draco himself stared impassively at his half-empty coffee mug.

_'I miss you, Ron.'_

_'I've missed you too, Hermione.'_ He pulled her into a brief hug, and they let go quickly, avoiding each other's eyes.

"Okay, Harry, your turn." Hermione took Harry's hand and linked them through weak Legilimens, quickly filling him in on the same events.

Harry's thoughts were silent as she sent him her thoughts, and she wondered if it was working at all. "Harry? Have you been able to hear what I've been thinking?"

Harry blinked. "Yes, you just told me the whole story."

"Oh, you just weren't thinking anything back."

"Oh. How do I do that?"

"Just... push your thoughts along our arms."

Harry furrowed his brow and gripped her hand hard, and suddenly Hermione was overwhelmed with a rush of thoughts entering her mind...

_'Am I doing it right I don't know this is weird Hermione and Malfoy had better behave and Auror training is tough and is it bad that I'm so protective of you when I love Ginny and Ron is here and this is crazy and I'm sorry the mirror was smashed but I'm glad the other mirrors and orbs and Neville and are they like prophecies and who is the thief I wonder if...'_

Hermione wrenched her hand away, alarmed. "My goodness, Harry, is that how jumbled your thoughts always are? How do you _ever_ form a coherent thought from all that?"

Draco snickered from the table, and Harry grinned, looking slightly embarrassed. "Maybe this is why I was always so bad at Occlumency," he said, "Here, let me show you one Ginny showed me, it's like your spell except it lets you transmit emotions instead of thoughts." He took her hand again. " _Emotus Translatio!_ "

Hermione gasped as she suddenly felt strong, powerful waves of protectiveness, of friendship, of concern, of love from her best friend, and somehow was able to understand his thoughts better in this form even though there weren't explicit words to go along with them. She felt a distinct _I'm here for you_ , a definite _I'm so glad to see you_ , a powerful _Malfoy better not hurt you or I'll kill him_ , and a very faint _I love you a little more than I should sometimes, you know that, right?_

"Harry, I had no idea... you _felt_ all this... it's - it's beautiful..." Hermione stammered. Ron turned away to face the window, and Draco choked on a sip of coffee.

"Go on Hermione, try it, send me something back."

"But what - how?"

Harry chuckled. "Just, whatever you're feeling at the moment, push it towards me. Like you did with your thoughts."

She tried, but was afraid of Harry knowing everything that she was feeling in that moment, and it felt mixed, jumbled, love and understanding mixed with fear and apprehension and worry, so that it was unclear even to her what she was trying to send to him. He winced and pulled away, shaking his hand in the air as if to dry it from being plunged into cold water.

"Blimey, Hermione, you really _can_ feel lots of things at once, how do you manage?"

It was her turn to laugh. "I guess that's why I stick to books and logic."

Harry grinned back, then his face fell as his eyes fixed on a spot just above her right ear. His hand reached up touch the flower that was still tucked into her hair... and several things happened at once. Hermione caught his wrist mid-air and turned her head away (she did _not_ want to explain the flower right now), Draco stood up so fast that his chair crashed to the floor, and Ron turned back from the window, looking around wildly, his wand raised. Harry simply frowned.

"Well, hasn't this been a _delightful_ gathering," drawled Draco, and he strutted over to Hermione and put his arm around her, flashing a look of pure malice towards Ron and Harry. "If you two will excuse us, we have _real_ work to do."

Hermione wriggled out of his grip, pushing him away. " _Why_ must you all still act like children around each other? Draco, sit down. Ron, put _down_ your wand, _honestly_! Harry, stop staring into space. I want to know how Auror work is going." She folded her arms and put on her bossiest face, hoping that it would embarrass all three of them into submission. After several raised eyebrows, smirks, and grins, the four of them finally sat around the coffee table, Draco and Ron eyeing each other warily across from Hermione and Harry.

"Well," began Harry, "That's another reason we came to see you, actually. Catching the remaining Dark wizards has been the easy part - Neville's especially got that covered - and there's only a few organized groups left..."

"Who would those be?" Draco interrupted suddenly, gripping his coffee mug with both hands, his pale face turning grey, and Hermione reached to put her hand over his. He relaxed slightly at her touch but looked at Harry intently.

Harry and Ron exchanged a glance. "There's a little gang in Romania now, recruiting from Durmstrang, stirring up trouble, we think Pansy Parkinson is the leader," said Ron, ignoring Harry's frantic warning looks. "That's the only group we haven't caught yet."

Draco's remaining coffee was turning to ice, the mug beginning to crack apart in his hands, but he simply nodded and stared into the freezing mug.

"Anyway," cut in Harry quickly. "The real trouble is the Sorcerers' Societies. So many wizards were killed or injured by Voldemort and his followers that a lot of Ministry departments are understaffed and disorganized, and these Sorcerers' Societies are taking advantage of the chaos, with theivery and smuggling and the like."

Hermione gasped. "Like at Hogwarts!"

Ron nodded. "When we heard about the mirror being smashed, our first thought was you, but our second was that it sounded like the work of the Sorcerers' Societies. It's worse than petty theft, they target objects that are really valuable to people, and have even kidnapped people for ransom a few times. Some of them also were aligned with You-Know-Who and particularly aim to steal from people they want revenge against."

"Revenge..." Hermione thought of checkered stockings and ratty grey hair, and wondered...

" _Los Stregones._ " Draco muttered, frowning.

"Who?" said Harry and Ron in unison.

Draco blinked, coming out of a deep thought. " _Los Stregones Nero del Mago_ , the Black Magic Sorcerer's Society of Italy. Giovanni told me in my Pensieve meeting that he was part of that group in his younger days, and did some time in Azkaban for it."

" _Giovanni?_ " Harry, Ron, and Hermione exclaimed in unison.

"Blimey, how did we not think to look that up?" said Ron. "He was one of the only newcomers to Hogwarts, and with everyone's things going missing..."

"And it would make sense, it was linked to the Pensieve!" cried Hermione. "And he had plenty of access, _plenty_ of time to make a copy charm, and McGonagall assigned _him_ to the investigation... oh how _stupid_ could we be!"

"Wow," said Harry, "He just seemed so _happy_ all the time..."

"No," interrupted Draco suddenly. "No, I didn't mean that he's the culprit, he _can't_ be. No."

Ron raised an eyebrow. "Why not? Defending one of your own?"

Draco's freezing mug split in two, a frozen block of brown coffee laying limply on the table between the shards. " _Reparo,_ " muttered Hermione, and the mug re-sealed itself, the coffee melting into hot liquid again.

Draco swallowed and stared into the steam rising from his mug. "He's been given a second chance. He'd be a moron to screw it up, and Giovanni's not stupid." He lifted his gaze and shifted it back and forth between the three of them, as if daring them to challenge his assertion. "You don't get out of Azkaban and think, 'hey, I should do the same thing I did last time so I could go back there again.' You get out and you want to start over, take the second chance and run with it."

Hermione frowned at him, but Draco ignored her and pressed on. "There's no way it's him. But I can ask him if he knows anyone around here who might be involved..."

" _You_ can ask him?" spat Ron. " _We're_ the Aurors..."

"And Draco is Giovanni's friend," said Hermione thoughtfully, "And seeing as it's illegal to use Veritaserum on a suspect without witnesses or other evidence of the suspect's criminality, it might be easier for him to get information out of Giovanni." She looked meaningfully at Draco. "And I'm not as convinced of his innocence as you seem to be, but whether he is innocent or not, your talking to him would be a good start. He seems to think it's Alexa, so maybe you can ask him why he suspects her, and we'd get a new lead."

Harry was surveying the scene thoughtfully, and finally spoke. "It's a good idea, but how do we know we can trust Malfoy here to relay what he finds?"

Draco raised an eyebrow. "I thought we were starting over, Potter."

"We are. But it doesn't change the fact that you have a criminal record."

There was a pause, and then Draco spoke again, this time deadly serious. "You can trust me because you have power over something that's important to me. Keep Pansy Parkinson alive and unharmed, and I will dig up as much information as I can in return."

Pale grey eyes stared down brilliant green for a tense moment. Finally, Harry slowly extended his hand. "I'd buy that. Pansy may still end up in Azkaban, but I'll tell Neville to spare her at all costs." Draco grabbed his hand and shook it hard, as if trying to break Harry's fingers with his grip.

Ron stood up. "Well - we should go soon, Kingsley's waiting for us," he said, and turned to Draco. "I'll keep your little friend safe too, but _only_ if you look after Hermione while we're away. Anything happens to her, and Parkinson can rot in Salazar's cemetery for all I care."

Draco glared at Ron. "Hermione Granger doesn't _need_ looking after, you freckle-splotched dimwit."

Hermione bit on her cheek to keep from laughing at the comical insult. Ron glared back, and Harry stood to restrain him, but Ron simply let out a breath and looked down. "I know that, you ugly white piece of chalk, but look after her anyway."

Draco nodded slightly in Ron's direction, and Hermione quickly stood to hug Harry goodbye, avoiding eye contact with Ron. As the two turned to leave, Ron paused as if unsure whether to hug her, then gave a small half-wave and hurried out after Harry, the creaky door of Bugby's Bean snapping shut.


	23. The Brilliant Red Rose

That evening, Hermione lay awake in her bed, staring at the enchanted stars on the ceiling of her dormitory, twirling a brilliant red rose around in her fingers. Ginny, Harry, and Ron had now all left Hogwarts, only Dean sharing the tower now, making the calm night oddly quiet.

Was this how it always was for Draco, alone at the top of Slytherin tower?

She closed her eyes and sighed as she recalled the events of the day. After Harry and Ron left, Hermione had hopped on the back of Draco's broom and he had flown them to his room, where they spent hours working on the fascinating magic of mirrors, summoning their dinner plates from the Great Hall to save time and working well into the evening. They made an infinite number of hidden copies of an object by placing two mirrors facing each other, enchanting the reflection of an object to move separately from itself, even attempted to use their findings on their own Dark scars, to try to heal their left arms by copying the reflection of the right.

That last attempt had not gone so well, with Hermione's skin of her forearm accidentally taking on the pale color of Draco's and vice versa, the Dark Marks unchanged. They had burst into hysterical laughter at their mistake, reversing the charm quickly and collapsing onto the sofa that he had Transfigured his bed into...

 

_''What are you doing after Hogwarts, Hermione?'' he asked when the laughter had died down. ''What NEWTS are you taking?''_

_''Oh, I'd like to go to St. Catterwalls' to study inter-species magical relations, I've realized that there's a lot I don't know about house-elves and other magical creatures, and my initial S.P.E.W. idea may have been a bit off the mark.'' Draco smirked at that. ''I've applied there, and we'll see...'' she trailed off as she realized she didn't want to discuss her financial status with Draco Malfoy. ''How about you?'' she asked quickly._

_''Me? I've always wanted to research object enchantments, actually, so all this mirror stuff is serving a second purpose,'' he replied, ''The things you can find in Borgin and Burkes', it's incredible. And actually, these days, I'm wondering about studying Muggle objects, things like their new cell phones and computers and bombs, imagine what could be done if we combine them with magic...''_

_Hermione folded her hands together nervously. ''You'd have to be careful with things like those, they're a bit more complicated than mirrors and cabinets...''_

_''Of course, that's why wizards have to understand them! We can't just go bumbling around like Arthur Weasley, taking apart Muggle objects and trying to figure out how they work without ever researching the science involved. Mr. Weasley didn't even know that a Stunning spell can be used to turn on a Muggle light bulb.''_

_Hermione blinked. ''Right - a minor electric shock - why didn't I ever think of that?''_

_Draco chuckled, folding his arms behind his head. ''Because Dumbledore kept this school on the lockdown, brainwashing everyone here into believing that there's nothing harmful about Muggles at all, that they need to be protected from evil Dark Wizards who want to lord over them. And the easiest way to convince people of that is to shield them from Muggle science, so that they never realize that there is now Muggle technology that magic can't match. There are higher-ups in the Ministry who understand, though, that the reason we stay secret is to protect ourselves from Muggles, not to protect them from ourselves.''_

_Hermione shook her head. ''There is nothing harmful about most Muggles, and they do need to be protected from evil Dark Wizards. Otherwise I wouldn't have had to hide my parents, and Harry wouldn't have had to hide his aunt and uncle and cousin.''_

_Draco scowled at her, confusion and struggle etched in his face. ''I suppose you're right,'' he grimaced, massaging his Dark Mark. ''But think about it. Besides Astronomy, have we ever had so much as a basic science class here at Hogwarts? Cell biology, physics, how magic interacts with the laws of nature? At least Snape taught us some basic chemical principles in Potions class, but I learned the rest of this stuff from my private tutor at home over the summers. And don't say Muggle Studies, that class is a bunch of modified historical and sociological nonsense, it doesn't tell us anything about what Muggles are trying to do with genetic modifications or nanotechnology.''_

_Hermione gripped her own scar, which had started throbbing painfully. She managed a thoughtful nod, and then the pain seared across her arm, forcing her to close her eyes against the tears threatening to spill at the blinding pain. She moaned as she felt a gentle hand caress her own, and slowly the pain diminished as she allowed the long, pale fingers to trace along her swelling scars once again._

_''It hurts, doesn't it?'' he asked, and Hermione nodded, looking up into an expression of concern that she had never before seen on the face of Draco Malfoy. Giving in to instinct, she buried her face in his shoulder and allowed him to gently cradle her head with his other hand._

_''That passage in the book you were reading,'' he murmured into her hair. ''It was saying that Dark scars sometimes persist if you believe you deserve them?''_

_''Well, that's one possibility. There's also notes on things like forgiveness, acceptance, and remorse, the same kind of old magic that can heal a soul that's been split into a Horcrux...''_

_''Do you really believe you deserve these scars? This... title?''_

_Hermione opened her eyes and pulled away from Draco, looking away from him. ''In a way I do, don't you? You certainly called me it often enough.''_

_''But I... not anymore...''_

_Hermione laughed harshly. ''But you still think it, sometimes, don't you? And yes, so do I, to some degree. It's a terrible disadvantage, isn't it? Why do you think I study so hard? I have to work_ thrice _as hard as students who grew up in wizarding families just to catch up on all the basic knowledge! I came to Hogwarts eleven years behind the average first year!''_

_Draco looked stunned as she rambled on, wringing her hands in the air. ''And all I can do is amass facts and knowledge from books, I know it's fake, a poor substitute for the real thing of growing up in a Wizarding family... I don't have that instinct, that automatic intuition for how magic works. I'm speaking magic with an accent!''_

_She finally looked back up at him. ''So of course I deserve the title. Mudblood. I've always deserved it, because it was true. Not the literal color of the blood, but the disadvantages that came with it. It hurt, you know, every time you said it to my face, and Harry and Ron would practically attack you every time. It hurt because it was_ true _.''_

_He stared at her in disbelief. ''I don't think your knowledge is a poor substitute for the real thing.''_

 

Turning to her side, Hermione placed the red rose on the windowsill next to her bed and felt her scars, remembering how the pain in her arm had dissipated at Draco's words. Remembering how the swelling abated at what he had said next... what was it? Oh yes...

 

 _''You were the reason that I started questioning my own beliefs about Purebloods and Muggle-borns, you know... I mean, the first couple years I passed it off as book-smarts and being a teacher's pet, I thought the teachers were just favoring you and giving you good grades for no reason. But you kept outdoing my expectations, and eventually sometime around fifth year, when you and Potter were doing that Dumbledore's Army thing, I knew it couldn't be_  his _idea, and I couldn't deny it anymore, you were wicked smart and crazy talented.''_

_He stood up, looking agitated, and stared into one of their practice mirrors, which reflected the window through which the half moon shone. ''And I hated it. I hated that I, Draco Malfoy, was being outdone by a Mud- I mean, a Muggle-born.'' Hermione shuddered involuntarily at the venom in his voice. ''I hated your goodness and compassion and talent, and the way Potter and Weasley would just fawn over you, and I carried that hatred straight into the heart of the Death Eaters' inner circle, until the day my father murdered my childhood best friend.''_

_Hermione didn't dare to speak, or even breathe. He looked dangerous, pale and towering, glowing in the moonlight that reflected a thousand times in the carefully placed mirrors that faced each other around the room._

_''She was a muggle. Her name was Louise.'' His voice shook as he said her name. ''I hadn't seen her in eight years, at my father's command. And then she found us behind the Manor one day, and my father struck her dead without a second thought. Then my mother came running up to us and told me that they had captured Potter.''_

_Hermione gasped. It was that same night..._

_''I didn't know what to do,'' he went on, ''but all my hatred, all the anger I used to have for you and Potter and Weasley and all the blood traitors I had ever known, it was all directed at him, that night. I didn't feel anything for you and your trio, I only felt hatred for my father, and for the Dark Lord, and for my aunt Bellatrix, for threatening to kill another beautiful, kind, innocent...''_

_He trailed off, grey eyes unfocusing in the moonlight. Hermione stood up and approached him from behind, taking his hand in hers. She saw their reflections a thousand times in the mirrors, the moon that was half dark and half light shining just above their heads in each shimmering image._

_''And yet you still think you deserve your Dark Mark too, don't you? Even after all that?''_

_''Of_ course  _I deserve it. I_ chose _it, you didn't choose yours.''_

_''I never thought you deserved the title. Harry was trying to convince me all of sixth year that you were a Death Eater, and I didn't believe him. I couldn't believe that you, and Snape, that either of you could ever truly serve Voldemort. There was too much good in you.''_

_''And how would you know that?'' he spat harshly._

_''Because you loved your parents, and defended them with everything you had,'' she replied, the words coming to her mind instantly, though she had never really thought about it before. ''Any time Harry or Ron would insult your mother or father, you would snap, just like they would when you would insult their families back. And even now I don't believe you really hate your father.''_

_''I beat him up in our Ministry cell last summer.''_

_Hermione raised an eyebrow. ''Out of anger, perhaps? Or was it really out of hatred?''_

_''Revenge is sweet, Hermione. He hit my mother a couple times when he was really angry, it only happened twice, but still. He beat me plenty when I'd disobey him. He also used the_ Cruciatus _curse on me three times, once the last day I ever played with Louise, once when I nearly failed Charms in third year, and the last time, the most painful time, was at the Dark Lord's command. Shortly after you three escaped.''_

_''Oh, Merlin...'' whispered Hermione, clutching his hand harder. ''Harry told me the punishment was brutal, but I never imagined...''_

_Draco shook his head. ''Look, you win, I do love my parents, I've always looked up to them, and despite their harsh parenting style, they were always obsessed with keeping me safe. My father had been so involved with the Dark Lord in his first rise to power that when he returned, he believed that our family wouldn't be safe anywhere except at his side. So he went to his side immediately, hoping for the best. There was nothing else to be done.''_

_''Dumbledore could have...''_

_''Dumbledore!'' Draco snorted. ''The brilliant wizard who was supposed to protect Potter's parents? Right. Because he kept_ so _many people safe. Like Cedric Diggory.''_

_Hermione was quiet for a long moment. ''I can't believe I'm about to say this,'' said Hermione, her heart hammering in her chest, ''but I think you're right. The world is better off without Dumbledore in it. Dumbledore and Voldemort, two wizards with far too much power... light and dark, yes, there's a big difference, but it only ever amounts to war in the end, doesn't it? Each of them sending a teenager on the impossible mission of killing the other off...''_

_Draco's reflection slowly looked down at her own. The thousands of mirrored copies did the same, and Hermione saw all of them except the real one, the one whose pulse was beating in her hand..._   
  


 

Hermione saw her own faint reflection staring back at her in her window and gasped. She finally knew. She knew how to retrieve the orbs from the mirror.

* * *

Draco Transfigured the sofa in his room back into a bed, laying down on it and wrapping himself in blankets, closing his eyes against the reality of his own cowardice. How had it gotten to that point? Oh yes, she had actually started to come around to his point of view, and it was the sexiest thing in the Wizarding world...

_''I can't believe I'm about to say this,'' said Hermione, her pulse quickening against his wrist, ''but I think you're right. The world is better off without Dumbledore in it. Dumbledore and Voldemort, two wizards with far too much power... light and dark, yes, there's a difference, but it only ever amounts to war in the end, doesn't it? Each of them sending a teenager on the impossible mission of killing the other off...''_

_He slowly looked down at her, hardly daring to believe that he had heard right. ''You're starting to doubt your beliefs.''_

_Hermione shook her head fervently. ''No, I'm not! I'm just...''_

_''Yes, you are. I can see it. It's terrifying, isn't it? To have your own truth ripped apart in your mind?''_

_''Dumbledore knew of love, he was nothing like Vol-''_

_''No, Dumbledore was entirely different from him, but just as wrong! That's what I've been trying to tell you this entire year! It took me_ years _to realize that about the Dark Lord, that he wasn't this infallible being who was going to bring peace and prosperity to Wizarding kind. And neither was Dumbledore, as you're now starting to realize. The world isn't that simple.''_

_She pulled her hand away from his, tears running down her cheeks but laughing shakily, her reflections doing the same. ''I helped kill them both, didn't I,'' she whispered, wiping her tears on her sleeve. ''I helped Harry find the horcruxes, and I helped you with the Vanishing cabinet. And now I don't even regret the latter. What does that make me?''_

_''It makes you independent, not blindly taking a side like most idiots, but looking hard for where the truth lies!'' Draco grasped her shoulder with one hand and turned her head to face him with the other. ''And you saved both Potter's life and mine by doing so. The Dark Lord had me take an Unbreakable Vow at the start of the year. If I didn't find a way of letting Death Eaters into Hogwarts by the end of the school year, I'd have died immediately.''_

_Suddenly there were arms around him, pulling him close, and he responded vigorously, holding her tightly to him like a lifeline, the only other soul in existence who_ understood _... was this how Potter felt, why the two of them were always merging together like conjoined twins?_

_''I should go back to Gryffindor tower, it's getting late,'' Hermione said finally, pulling away and blushing faintly in the moonlight._

_''Let me walk you back,'' he responded quickly, feeling cold and empty as she let go of him. He desperately wanted her to stay, here in his room, or maybe snog her senseless on the Astronomy Tower, maybe if he just stalled a bit..._

_They walked across the quiet skybridges in silence, Draco waging an inner war with himself. What should he say? Confess his feelings? Ask her to stay with him? Was there any chance she wouldn't reject a Death Eater? Could he really sacrifice his own pride and date a Muggle-born?_

_Naturally, they were at her room before he managed to decide on anything, and so he had done nothing at all. Hermione fiddled with her wand to unlock her door. ''So, um,'' she said uncertainly, ''Thanks - I mean, see you in Potions then?''_

_He nodded, his throat going dry. No one had any right to be this beautiful... The lock clicked and as she made to open the door he caught her hand in his, finally deciding on one thing he would be brave enough to do. He brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them, looking up to see her brown eyes glittering with gold in the light of the half moon, the silvery flower still tucked into the side of her bushy head of hair. Draco took the flower and Transfigured it into a red rose with a long green stem, offering it back. ''Happy Valentines' Day.''_

_Hermione beamed at him and took the flower, then suddenly looked puzzled. ''But Valentines' Day was yesterday.''_

_He looked at her incredulously, and she covered her mouth in embarrassment, giggling. The blasted know-it-all couldn't help but correct him. Draco snickered, the tension finally dissipating. ''Goodnight then, Miss Granger,'' he drawled in his loftiest Malfoy tones, and turned to leave._

_'''Night,'' she laughed as she closed her door behind her._   
  


 

Well, he _was_ a coward, but it hadn't gone so badly in the end, he supposed. Draco pushed aside his Sleeping Draught and fell into a fitful slumber.


	24. Attempt Number One Hundred and Twenty-Four

Hermione stood in front of her mirror for the third night in a row, books and papers and hastily sketched diagrams strewn across her desk, and closed her eyes to ready herself for attempt number one hundred and seven.

She was close, she could feel it, to making the breakthrough that would allow her to retrieve her parents' copied memories from their Muggle mirror. She had been recording her attempts, making notes of what seemed to bring her closer to success and what had failed. One hundred and six failed attempts so far, but then, only two people in wizarding history had ever been witnessed performing this spell successfully...

This time, she walked up to the mirror and pressed her palms to the cold glass with her eyes still shut tight - a combination she hadn't yet tried - and focused once again on turning her own mind around, moving across the glass, pouring her soul into her reflection, this time trying to travel through the link at her hands with their reflections. It was incredibly difficult, doing wandless magic, but the only other two recorded successes were wandless as well...

" _Legilimens Infirmus, Transvecto Cogita, Reflexio Separarem,_ " she whispered, " _Reflexio Separarem Absolvo!_ "

Hermione opened her eyes, saw her reflection still staring back at her, and tried to lift her right hand.

Her own left hand moved upwards beside her, the right hand of her reflection lifting instead.

"Oh, bollocks!" she cried aloud to herself. "All I've done is flip my own handedness backwards!" She turned around to make notes of this attempt, chuckling as she realized she'd probably have to write it left-handed unless she reversed this first...

Her desk was no longer to her right, it was to her left, the bed at the right instead. She gasped as she saw her drawings and notes and books, the writing all backwards, as it would be in a reflection...

"I'm inside the mirror, I'm my reflection!" she said aloud to no one. Hermione suddenly was afraid of moving out of the line of sight of her own reflection - what would happen if she did? Would she disappear, as reflections do when the real thing no longer is reflecting it? And since her soul was on the other side, would she die?

Hastily pressing her hands to the mirror again, she closed her eyes and repeated the spell. " _Legilimens Infirmus, Transvecto Cogita... Reflexio Separarem Absolvo!_ " And when she opened her eyes, to her relief, her desk was on her right and the bed at her left. She grabbed her wand and magically opened her own door as Dean Thomas walked by on the way to his room.

"Dean!" she cried, still afraid to move away from the mirror. "Could you come in here a second?"

He turned, surprised. "Sure, what's up?"

She breathed a sigh of relief as he walked through the door, his reflection appearing in her large mirror. "Nothing," she replied, "Just had to check that you could still walk in here, I'm, um, practicing locking charms and wanted to check that I've undone them properly."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Sure thing, Hermione. You doing okay? I know your three best friends are gone now, maybe we can hang out more. I spend a lot of time in the common room, you should come down and join us."

She smiled. "Perhaps I will, thanks for the offer." Dean saluted and left the room.

Hermione inched to the side of the mirror and slowly extended her arm past it. Her arm still appeared to be whole. Letting out a sigh of relief, she sat at her desk and made extensive notes on attempt number one hundred and seven.

* * *

Draco Vanished the last of his Sleeping Draught. He needed to break the dependence. Even the nightmares were better than the blank potion-induced sleep that left him feeling groggy and dehydrated in the mornings, unable to concentrate in classes, and longing for night to come around again.

After tossing and turning for several hours, he woke with a start in the dead of night, looking around wildly, checking that the ghosts of the people he murdered were not actually floating about his room. Breathing heavily, he pulled his cloak over his sleep robes and wandered out to roam the castle.

He saw Granger scribbling furiously on her desk through her window - still working even at this hour - and wondered whether she really _did_ have to study harder to keep up... he wandered down the steps and through the vast hallways, dodging Peeves and Alexa and navigating his way through the moving staircases. He found himself taking his well-worn route to the music room, where Flitwick trained the school chorus and where every kind of magical instrument could be found. Picking up an ornate snakophone and facing a mirror to practice his technique, he began to play.

* * *

>   
>  _Attempt number one hundred and twenty-three. With the use of a reflected Solidifying Charm, I can now pick up objects that I have hidden inside the mirror, when I am experiencing the world as my reflection. My reflection was still successfully acting independently from myself, as it has been since attempt number one hundred and fourteen. However, the object I retrieve comes out into the real world reversed, flipped right to left from how it had entered. I believe I need to link two mirrors, so that I can enter through one, travel to the other, and then come back out again with the object. This way the object will reverse its orientation twice and come out unchanged._
> 
> _On to attempt number one hundred and twenty-four._  
>    
> 

If Hermione had not been so close to success, she might have realized how horribly tired she was, how hungry from skipping dinner, how lonely from holing herself up in her room the last three nights, how subconsciously anxious about falling behind on her classes. But she was entirely focused, determined to make the breakthrough, her entire world reduced to mirrors and mathematics and memories.

Carefully, she magically linked her hand mirror with the main mirror and mounted the small hand mirror on the opposite wall. Hiding the red rose in its reflection in the larger mirror, she closed her eyes, pressed her palms against the mirror, and entered her own reflection once more. She could now move about freely while her real body sat quietly, eyes closed in concentration, in the center of her room, and saw with an excited start that she was not reflected in the opposite, smaller mirror, though it did reflect the rose. She needed to enter the second mirror, somehow follow the link...

Reaching her hand carefully to the left, she saw her hand poking into view in her hand mirror. Ever so cautiously she walked left into darkness, until she found a smaller source of light, like a window, illuminating a red rose - she was now behind her hand mirror in the world of reflections, and approached the rose and grasped it.

Suddenly, Hermione heard voices, a quiet cacophony of murmers whispering from all directions. And from far away, the low tones of a snake charming melody floating through the darkness. Could it be coming from the Gryffindor common room below?

Shuddering and hoping for the best, she pressed a hand against the small hand mirror and closed her eyes, muttering the incantation. When she opened her eyes, she was sitting in the same position that her real body had been left in, in the middle of her room, the rose now in her hand, unharmed and unchanged.

"YES!" Jumping up with delight, Hermione furiously scribbled down everything that had gone into attempt number one hundred and twenty-four...

It was terribly quiet in her room.

Then what were the whispers and the sound of the flute?

>   
>  _Attempt number one hundred and twenty-five. I think I may have been hearing sounds from other linked mirrors throughout the castle. Is this how Dumbledore always seemed to know what was happening everywhere in the school at all times? One more time into the mirror, I must investigate..._
> 
>  

* * *

The door to the music room flew open, and Draco instinctively dropped the snakophone and whipped out his wand, then lowered it when he saw the small frame of second-year Slytherin Max Carrow gaping at him in the doorway. The dark-haired boy gasped and turned to run away.

With a quick wave of his wand, Draco wrapped black ropes around the boy's middle and pulled him back into the room. With another flick of his wand he closed the door behind them. Max wrenched his way out of the ropes, folding his arms and glaring at Draco.

"Wandering about after hours, Max?"

"Preston Logan is out of bed too! I thought it was him playing the flute in here! He's _up_ to something! I saw him coming out of Giovanni's office!"

Draco smirked. "Gryffindors are always up to something. The question is, what are _you_ up to? Trying to get Preston into trouble?"

"Well, he should -"

"Do you know I spent the first five years at Hogwarts trying to do the same thing to Harry Potter?" Draco cut in. "And I suspected him of lots of things that he turned out to be innocent for. I even spread rumors about him, things I wasn't sure were true but that I _wanted_ to be true. And he did the same to me in return. It was a neverending feud, and now I just look back and think about what a gigantic waste of time it all was."

"Waste of time?" Max furrowed his brow. "But that's Harry _Potter_ we're talking about. He used the _Cruciatus_ curse on my father! You should have kept it up! What _happened_ to you?"

Draco frowned. Out of the corner of his eye he could have sworn he saw a head of bushy hair moving across the mirror. Maybe he _did_ see a head of bushy hair, and _only_ in the mirror...

"What happened to me," he responded slowly, carefully not looking at the mirror, "Is the same as what happens to any Pureblood who starts questioning their values. The trap I had sworn to myself that I would avoid, but now am glad to be caught in it. You meet someone, maybe a Muggle or a Muggle-born, someone who doesn't share the traditional views of Pureblood virtue, and you find yourself becoming friends with them, or falling in love..."

"So Mulciber was right! You ARE a blood traitor now! He saw you with the Mudblood Granger in Potions class, said you were holding her _hand_..." Max clenched his little fists at his side and sneered at Draco.

"You will wipe that smirk off your face, and respect your elders!" Draco hissed, aiming his wand at the insolent boy. "And not interrupt them when they are talking to you. Is. That. Clear?"

Max crossed his arms in front of him. "No!"

Draco raised his wand in fury, and, suddenly reminding himself of his father, lowered it again, taking deep breaths to calm himself. _Giovanni_ , he thought, _I need to reach out to him like Giovanni reached out to me._

"Well, then, Maxmillian Arcturus Carrow, since you won't respect me as an authority figure, we'll just have to be friends instead." Draco sat down on a choir stool, gesturing to the one next to him. Max looked confused and slightly relieved, and stood stock still with his arms crossed tightly.

"Harry Potter hurt my father too, you know," he said, "Stunned him with three wands at once in our own house. I was worried he was going to die, but he somehow survived the attack, and also survived the punishment the Dark Lord wrought on us after Potter escaped."

Max stood quite still, glaring, so Draco continued. "But Harry Potter wasn't the only one to do terrible things during the battle for power that began with the Dark Lord's return. There's a reason I went to Azkaban, you know."

"There's also a reason you got out," said Max coldly. "Because you were too much of a coward to kill Dumbledore. You were always a coward and a traitor to our side!"

"Coward? Sure. Traitor? I never was and never will be."

"So you're not going out with Hermione Granger then?"

Draco had to force himself not to glance towards the mirror where he suspected her reflection was hiding. "Whether I am or am not, I would not be a blood traitor either way. To be a traitor you first have to take a side, you see. To be a traitor, you have to betray a promise, or an oath of loyalty. I was never really loyal to the Dark Lord, or to Pureblood values."

"See!" he exclaimed. "I knew it! You were on Potter and Dumbledore's side the whole time! Just like Professor Snape! Those Mudbloods you fell in love with _ruined_ you! I'll _never_ fall in love!"

"No," said Draco calmly. "I was never on Potter and Dumbledore's side."

"But you said..."

"I said I was never really loyal to the Dark Lord. I was loyal to my _family_ , and _they_ were loyal to the Dark Lord. But I never really agreed with the Dark Lord's aims and methods. I had clung to a hope that life under the Dark Lord's command would turn out the way my family envisioned, but it didn't. And I _certainly_ didn't think an old fool like Dumbledore was anything worth listening to for more than the annual 'let the feast begin'. "

"You're confusing."

Draco smirked. "Sit," he gestured to the chair again, and this time Max hesitantly stepped forward and perched himself tensely on the stool. Draco gestured to their reflections in the large mirror. "See that boy in the mirror, the one with the dark hair and the blue eyes? When I look at that boy, I don't see any old Slytherin. I don't see a boy who blindly takes a side. I see a boy named Max who is out of bed very late at night, whose parents are every bit as locked up in Azkaban as mine are, and who probably is very angry that he couldn't stay in the Great Hall and fight alongside his family last spring."

Max's head snapped up and he glared at Draco. "How would you know that?"

"Because McGonagall sent you all away, didn't she? Every single underage Slytherin. The sodding bitch. I would have wanted to kill her too."

The dark-haired boy almost smiled. "So you're not on either side. You're in the middle."

He shrugged. "I'm Draco Malfoy. When I look into the mirror, what I'm starting to see, now, is a young man with blonde hair and grey eyes with an interest in astronomy and object enchantments and with an awful lot of inherited money that he has to figure out what to do with. But some days it's hard for me to see anything but the Dark Lord's failed assassin and torturer-in-chief. Here's my advice for you, kid. Don't let yourself get to that point. Don't define yourself by a House or a political view. Just be Max Carrow. All right?"

Max nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, sir."

"Call me Draco." He picked up the snakophone. "Has anyone ever taught you how to charm snakes, Max?"

"Um, no?"

"That's why you came here today, isn't it? To try to teach yourself some music. Otherwise, if your first excuse about chasing after Preston Logan was true, I'd have to report you to the headmaster and assign you detention, not to mention take points off from my own House. But if you simply couldn't sleep, and you went for a stroll for an educational purpose, that is a different matter entirely."

Max looked from the snakophone back to Draco and back again, struggling with himself. "I - actually, I _would_ like to learn, was that you playing it before?"

"Yes, and if you'd like, I'll give you lessons. Starting next week. Tonight it is much too late, and you should be off to bed." Draco magically opened the door with his wand.

"Yes sir- I mean, okay Draco," Max grinned and hopped off the stool, skipping towards the door. He paused in the doorway and turned around, frowning. "You're not as mean as everyone says you are. For a minute there I thought you were going to magically strike me."

 _I thought I was going to, too_ , thought Draco, suppressing a shudder. "Off to bed, Max."

He waited until the door to the music room had closed, and strode to the mirror. "Hermione?"

The reflection only showed himself, the room, the assortment of instruments. Had he imagined it? He put the snakophone to his lips and resumed his song.

Suddenly Hermione's head peeked out from behind the grand piano in the mirror. Draco turned around, but there was no one behind him. The Hermione-reflection walked straight up to face him beside his own reflection, beaming, stopping just before the boundary of mirror and reality. His eyes widened as he saw that she had dark circles under her eyes, cuts and bruises on her hands, and tottered unsteadily before righting herself once more.

"It works, Draco it works!" Her voice sounded muffled and far away, as if it was only half of her real voice. "I'm actually sitting in my bedroom right now."

"Been trying things without me, I see?"

"Oh I thought about telling you, but I was making so much progress, I didn't want to be distracted..."

He winked, and his reflection did the same. "Didn't know I have that effect on you." She blushed in the mirror, and he tried to make his reflection's hand pass through her, but his real hand got oddly stuck in midair when the reflection's hand touched her shoulder.

She giggled. "I can feel that! I'll tell you the incantation soon, it's amazing, so many of the mirrors in the castle are linked... and it's oddly confusing in here, there are so many noises, your snakophone is how I found you, then I wandered around until you started playing again..." she wobbled dangerously once more.

"Hermione, you look terrible. How long has it been since you slept?" He took a step towards the mirror and put his hand on it, but only touched his own reflection. Her reflection yawned and rested her head on his, which felt like an odd half-weight sinking into his shoulder in reality. "Get out of there, it looks like it's taking its toll on you..."

"Wait! One more experiment. Encase that snakophone in its reflection, I'll show you something."

He performed one of their practiced enchantments, and watched as her reflection picked up the snakophone and she pressed her hand to the mirror. "Meet me in my room?"

Draco nodded, and watched as the Hermione-reflection whispered incantations and slowly disappeared before his eyes. He made to put away the snakophone when he realized he didn't have it, and ran up towards Gryffindor Tower.

He paused only when he saw a small boy turn quickly around a corner at the end of a long corridor... was it Max? No, his hair was too light, maybe it was Preston Logan after all? When he reached the corner, however, he ran into Giovanni. His heart started pounding as he remembered his deal with Potter.

"Dray-co, my man! What are you doing out on this fine evening?"

"Just playing some music, getting back to bed now. And you?"

"Ah, just patrolling, I've got-a the night shift today!"

"Doesn't Filch patrol the corridors at night?"

"Well, the man-a has to sleep sometimes!"

Draco frowned but decided not to push his luck. "True. See you in class, then, and in the gym on Saturday."

"You're on, my man!" Giovanni closed the door to his office behind him, and Draco sprinted onwards until he reached Hermione's room. To his horror, he saw her laying limply in the middle of her floor through her small window, the snakophone by her side, a red rose resting on her desk, scribbled pieces of parchment and books strewn everywhere.

And naturally, her door was jammed shut with locking charms.

"All right, Hermione Granger, if that's how you want to play," he muttered, and set to work undoing the enchantments.

If he hadn't become so familiar with her style, he would never have succeeded. Finally the last lock clicked open and he pushed open the door.

* * *

All was oddly black, and oddly peaceful. Hermione vaguely felt a pair of strong arms wrap themselves around her and lift her to her bed, fevered images of broken mirrors and warped reflections flashing quickly through her mind before it went blissfully blank again.

She woke to ice-cold water being splashed on her head.

" _What_ in Merlin's name..."

"Sit up. Drink this." A potion was shoved into her hand, and she blinked to see Draco Malfoy's angry face looming over her. She sipped the potion and instantly felt a sense of warmth flow through her veins. "Now drink this." He took the potion and forced a glass of water into her hands.

She drank the water and shuddered. Only after she had finished the glass did she realize how terrible she felt. "I need food," she groaned, "I didn't really eat..."

"And reflection enchantments take a devillish amount of energy, you read the same thing I did, you should have known that!" he snapped at her. Why was he so angry? "Blinky! We don't have all day!"

With a loud _crack_ , a tiny, young-looking house-elf popped into the room and offered Hermione a steaming plate of food. "For Master Draco's mistress!" the elf squeaked, and bowed low.

"Thanks, Blinky, that will be all," Draco took the plate for Hermione and dismissed the elf, who disappeared with another loud _crack_.

Hermione's hands were too unsteady to hold the plate up by herself, and only vaguely realized that she had not managed to thank the tiny elf. Maybe she had overdone things... she ate shakily, sipping from Draco's potion and gulping water in between, wondering how bad things might have gotten if she hadn't told Draco to meet her here...

"Hang on, how did you get past my locking enchantments?"

"You should be thankful that I got past them," spat Draco. "Or was working yourself to the point of death your idea of not being distracted?"

Hermione chuckled weakly, too tired to respond with anger of her own. "I couldn't have actually worked myself to death. The first day of this school year I enchanted this entire room so that if I was on the brink of dying, I would be transported to the hospital wing directly. A precaution in case I'm attacked in my sleep, or poisoned. I just fell straight asleep after I exited the mirrors, I was in there a long time and I didn't realize how exhausted my real body was becoming... Thanks, Draco, for taking care of me like this."

Draco watched her eat silently for a long while. When at last she had cleared the plate, she collapsed back onto her bed - no, collapsed into a reclined sitting position on a sofa, certainly the work of Draco's usual Transfiguration. Draco sat beside her, their shoulders touching, their hands intertwining unconsciously.

"You really do think of everything, don't you."

Hermione finally had the strength to smile up at him. "It's an old habit, comes in handy when you're looking after Harry and Ron."

"Still," he growled, grey eyes flashing between anger and terror. "You should have told someone what you were doing. I could have helped!"

"No, I didn't need-"

"You _clearly_ needed me! I came up here and saw you sprawled on the floor like a sprig of Gillyweed - do you really trust Madam Pomfrey's incompetent hands with your life?"

"Madam Pomfrey would do well in a case like this-"

"And what if your body was transported while your soul was still in the mirror? What then, Oh Knowledgable One?"

Hermione gulped. Ten points to Slytherin. "You're right," she sighed. "I was reckless. I spent far too long inside the mirror this last time. It _does_ take a lot of energy, moving your reflection independent of yourself. I guess I just didn't realize how tired I was."

"Well, next time, realize it! It's not just _you_ that - look, I didn't give you that rose because I thought it would be funny." He suddenly pulled his hands away and clenched them into fists, avoiding her eyes. "Unlike Potter and your freckle-faced ex, I _am_ capable of being more for you than some incompetent fool that you have to look after."

And finally Hermione understood. It explained everything, why he was so angry, why he rushed to her aid, why he called his own house-elf from the Manor. Draco was terrified of losing her, and Slytherins did tend to disguise their fear as anger...

Her heart fluttering rapidly, she leaned over to press a kiss to his pale cheek. "I'm sorry. I'm here now. I'm not going anywhere." Then the world began swimming before her exhausted eyes, and she snuggled herself into the crook of his arm, her head resting against his torso.

"You'd better not," he murmered as she drifted rapidly into a deep sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought that with Harry and Ron gone, Hermione would be left to overwork herself with no one to distract her and calm her down.


	25. Auror Work

Harry blinked several times to try to focus on what Kingsley was saying to the table. Ron yawned loudly next to him. An emergency Auror meeting had been called at six in the morning on a Saturday, of all the ungodly hours... it was important, though. There had been an increasing number of kidnappings for ransom, with the monetary demands going up each time.

But last night's raid had been exhausting, and Harry found himself wondering, not for the first time, why he hadn't chosen to just stay at Hogwarts and let others clean up this mess. He could think better, in the school, he seemed to have learned more from that one visit to Hermione than the Aurors managed to dig up all year... _Because Hermione's there_ , a voice in the back of his head whispered to him. _Face it, you're lost without her._

Feeling slightly guilty that it was not Ginny who he was missing the most, Harry forced himself to focus. Dedalus Diggle was reporting on his findings from the previous evening, Hestia Jones frantically scribbling down notes. Something about Apparition holes, enlargement charms, and nonsecure locking charms... why did that sound familiar?

Suddenly a small brown owl fluttered quietly through the window and landed on Harry's shoulder, dropping a letter into his lap. He unfolded it under the table as Dedalus rambled on, and read it quickly:

 

> _Dear Harry,_
> 
> _Draco and I and retrieved the copies of the memories on Thursday night, and I restored them to my parents' minds, but something went terribly wrong! The copies weren't perfect, and maybe these charms don't work as well on Muggles. In any case my parents aren't really making sense at the moment. They're now in St. Mungo's, the Healers say that their minds should sort themselves out eventually but it may take years. I don't know what to do. Maybe I should just remove the damaged memories permanently and send them back to Australia._
> 
> _Send my best to Ron and Neville and everyone else. Please tell me when you'll next be visiting Ginny. I'll be back at Hogwarts tomorrow morning and I'd like to see you too, if you have the time._
> 
> _Love,_
> 
> _Hermione_

 

Harry read and re-read the letter several times, a sinking feeling of dread intensifying with each pass. The unusually messy handwriting, the attempt at a casual tone at the end but punctured by that uncharacteristic 'Please', the hurried signature. Ron read the letter over his shoulder and raised his red eyebrows, his expression matching the alarm that Harry felt.

"I'm sorry," Harry stood up, interrupting the meeting, the St. Mungo's owl that had delivered the letter fluttering off his shoulder into the sky. "Ron and I have got to go."

"It's a matter of the utmost importance," added Ron, who was sounding more and more like his older brothers with each day he spent in Auror training.

"I don't know what's in that letter, but finding the kidnappers of children is also a matter of the utmost importance," said Kingsley, "And it's imperative that you two are in on the recent information we've gathered..."

"Catch us up later," said Harry firmly, gathering his things. "It's Hermione."

The other Aurors murmured in understanding, and Kingsley sighed. "Do what you must."

* * *

Draco sat bolt upright in his bed, his mind oddly clear, a picture formed from broken pieces of information in his sleep. The little boy in the corridor. Giovanni. Alexa. The Pensieve. He didn't like it, didn't like it one bit. But he had a theory.

He headed down to the Great Hall, debating with himself whether he dared tell Hermione of his plan before setting it into action. If Giovanni was not at breakfast, he would tell her then, and otherwise he would tell her in the afternoon, after working out with Giovanni. But he would have to be careful.

Scanning the Hall quickly, he saw no sign of Giovanni, but no sign of Hermione either. He was about to head towards the Slytherin table when he heard his name muttered from within a large group of students clustered around the Gryffindor table.

There she was - Hermione and Ginny Weasley were sitting next to each other with their arms around each other, Potter and Ron Weasley across from them. Luna Lovegood was to Hermione's left, reaching out to hold Neville Longbottom's hand across the table. Several Gryffindors were trying to greet Potter, who was politely telling them one by one to clear off.

By the time Draco reached them, it was just the six of them, huddled together.

"Hermione, there's no way you can just delete those memories, I'm sure your parents want to remember you," Ron was saying. "The Healers are really good, just look how far Lockhart's come, and he had his entire memory blasted to smithereens. This should be way easier."

"But if I would have just left them safe in Australia where they were, they wouldn't have _known_ that they wanted to remember me, they would have been perfectly happy there! I was just being so selfish, what was I _thinking_ using secondhand copies of memories! They recognized me but thought I was still in second year, and that my best friend's name was Tom Riddle and that my lifelong aspiration was to be a Wizarding dentist!"

Draco had had no idea how badly the memories had been mangled. All he knew is that Hermione had insisted on spending the night with her parents, and that he couldn't bear to be in the ward - the same ward as Longbottom's parents, who his aunt had tortured into a permanent state of insanity.

Hermione was becoming more upset by the minute, and Harry looked up and nodded to Draco with a steely warning stare. "And it's not so simple as just letting the Healers do their work," she continued. "It costs quite a lot of money to keep people in St. Mungo's care, and this would mean that I'd have to put off going to St. Catterwalls' until they're out, it's the only way I'd be able to afford..."

"I'd help pay your way-"

"Hermione, my gran and I can-"

"You can borrow from-"

Harry, Neville, and Ron simultaneously offered the same thing, and Hermione laughed through her sniffles. "Thanks guys, but I could never accept that, really..."

Luna's dreamy voice suddenly cut through the conversation. "Well, it seems obvious what you should do, then. Wait a year or so to see if they can be healed, and if it seems like a permanent case of memory sickness, you can delete the memories permanently then." Hermione sighed and nodded in agreement, resting her head on Ginny's shoulder. "Also, perhaps I should move over, it seems like Draco wants to sit next to Hermione."

Hermione whirled around to see Draco standing behind her, and she instantly reached up to take his hand. He grasped it briefly, ignoring the astonished eyes from the five people around them, marvelling at how their telepathic connection was almost instant and wandless now, every time they touched. Draco wordlessly sent her the thought, _'We need to act like we hate each other again, just for the moment, I'll explain soon.'_ And with a reassuring brush of his thumb he released the contact, Hermione nodding slightly.

Rather than taking the seat on the bench that Luna had moved to provide, he leaned over the bench, resting his hands on the table, so that an onlooker could potentially interpret his stance as a threatening one. Ignoring Hermione, he looked directly at Potter and Weasley, steeling himself for the smug reaction that he knew would result from what he was about to say.

"I saw a young boy in the corridors the other night, and when I followed them to see who it was, I saw Giovanni around the corner. I have a theory that all the 'students' who Alexa was catching using the Pensieve at night were actually Giovanni using Polyjuice Potion."

Harry's ugly green eyes lit up. "Excellent! Ron and I considered that just the other day as a possibility, and we were talking about it with everyone here just before you showed up. Any hard evidence that we can go on?"

"No concrete evidence yet, but I have a plan to find out. I'm going to get him to recruit me."

Hermione gasped and then covered her mouth quickly, pulling away from Ginny, staring resolutely at her breakfast plate.

"Giovanni will come in for breakfast any minute now, and then he and I will go to the gym together as we usually do. When he comes in, I need all of us to act as if we just had a fight and we hate each other, so that I can more easily convince him that I'd be the kind of ex-Death Eater who can be persuaded to join _Los Stregones._ "

Ron frowned. "But you have plenty of money, why would he be convinced that you'd want to start stealing expensive stuff?"

"Revenge," said Neville, and Draco was relieved that the two idiots that managed to stumble through and defeat the Dark Lord only with Hermione's constant help were not the only Aurors at the table. "The Sorcerers' Societies are now accepting the help of stray Voldemort sympathizers who share an aim with them, like stealing something from a successful witch or wizard who fought against their side in the war."

"And how do we know we can trust you to be our spy and not _actually_ join them?" said Ginny, narrowing her eyes at him. Draco glanced around. They had minutes, at most.

"Because I entered a deal," he said quickly. "Pansy's life for information on Giovanni. And as Hermione can tell you, I haven't been backing out of deals lately." Hermione nodded to the table, still staring at her plate. Ginny shrugged, accepting his explanation.

Neville's face lit up. "Oh! I almost forgot, we rounded up Pansy Parkinson and her gang this week, and she's alive and well. We had to work extra hard to disarm their suicide enchantments before capturing them, but we did it, no casualties on either side."

Draco swallowed, and had to resist the urge to grip Hermione's shoulder for comfort. Suicide enchantments as backup? Pansy had gone utterly insane. "Have you written up a report yet? Can you tell the Prophet that she's dead? It'll help my story of joining a Sorcerers' Society for revenge."

"He's right," said Potter, standing up. "This is our best chance to put a stop to all this. Neville, put word out that Parkinson is dead. We can always 'find' that she actually escaped a blast later. And for now, when Giovanni walks in, I want everyone to act as if Draco had just offended us and vice versa."

"Shouldn't be that hard," grumbled Ron.

"Oh, there he comes," said Luna peacefully, staring into the mirror on the opposite wall from the main entrance. "You can start insulting us now, Draco."

Draco opened his mouth and his mind suddenly went blank, no words coming out. Ron sniggered.

"Can't think under pressure, Malfoy?" jeered Potter, egging him on.

At that, Draco managed to let some of his old habits take over. "Shut up, you stupid ugly scar-faced _hero of the wizarding world_. Pansy would still be alive if it weren't for you!"

"And my brother would be alive if it weren't for you!" growled Ron. Draco started to panic; once again he could think of nothing to say in response. Fortunately, the Weasel opened his big stupid mouth again. "And my girlfriend wouldn't have those scars on her arm..."

Nearly forgetting their act, Draco was suddenly filled with boiling-hot rage at the lanky redhead. "How _dare_ you speak about her scars! You know NOTHING! And she's about as much your _girlfriend_ as your little pet Scabbers was a rat."

Ron stood up, and Draco could tell he had succeeded in enraging Ron equally. Unfortunately, the redhead preferred action to words, and he whipped out his wand. Many students had now turned to watch, and Professor McGonagall was rushing forward, as was Giovanni. He had maybe thirty seconds to finish the act.

Hermione jumped as Draco put a possessive hand on her upper back, his thumb brushing up against her neck. _'Meet me at the gates to Malfoy Manor at one o'clock.'_ He hoped his message got through to her, then he glared at Ron. "She belongs to _me_ , you pathetic lump of hand-me-down rags."

Finally Hermione stood up and whirled around. "I do not _belong_ to you, you foul, arrogant son of Merlin's whore! How many times have I told you, I am _not_ to be treated as your possession..."

"And how many times have I told you to respect your superiors in society?" He found it much easier to put on the act towards Hermione, who he knew - he hoped - would not be likely to misinterpret his lies as truth. "Forget it, Mudblood, we're over. I should have known not to even _study_ with the likes of such filth. My father was right. _Real_ wizards first."

And just as Giovanni and McGonagall were about to reach the group, Draco turned on his heel and stormed over to the Slytherin table as Potter restrained Weasley from leaping over the table and tackling him. "Ahem, is everything all right over here?" McGonagall's stern voice was saying in the distance.

Draco made a point to sit down across from Max Carrow, who was eating alone at the far end of the Slytherin table, a scowl on his face. "I thought you were in love with her?" said Max when Draco sat down.

"I'll explain later, but it's not what it looks like," murmured Draco. "Can I trust you with a very important secret?" Max nodded, his deep blue eyes lighting up greedily. "All right, here it is. I think I know who has been stealing everything, and it's not Preston. Do you want to know who it is?"

"Yes, tell me!" said Max eagerly, then he frowned. "You're sure it's not Preston?"

Draco smirked. "As much as I know you'd love for it to be, I don't believe it's him. If you want to know, and to help, meet me tomorrow in the music room at seven o'clock for our first snake charming lesson. Understood?"

The dark-haired boy nodded again, his eyes wide, then stood up from the bench and bolted from the room excitedly, leaving Draco in his usual position alone on the bench. _Here they come_ , he thought, and braced himself for the onslaught of pathetic, dolled up Slytherin flirts.


	26. Malfoy Library

As much as it meant to her that all her best friends showed up at once to support her, Hermione was equally grateful for the demanding Auror schedule and Weasley joke shop work that drew Harry, Ron, Neville, and Ginny away from her after breakfast. Feeling almost happy, she hurried down to Bugby's Bean to start catching up on the weeks' worth of assignments that were all due on Monday. Luna was right - she _should_ trust that the Healers' magic would work, study hard for her NEWTS, and if it looked to be a permanent condition she would make her decision then.

Writing furiously for the five hours she had free before meeting Draco, she managed to finish her Transfiguration, Potions, and Ancient Runes essays, leaving only History of Magic, Arithmancy, Charms, and Astronomy. She checked a few tasks off on her wand-assisted mental checklist, packed her things into her small beaded bag, and, taking a deep breath, Apparated to the gates of Malfoy Manor.

It was eerily quiet, an afternoon breeze rustling the bushes to the right of the gates. Hermione held out her wand, memories of her last unwilling visit to the place flooding her mind... for a brief moment of insanity she considered the possibility that Draco had meant everything he said this morning, that he was about to betray her...

 _Pop!_ Draco appeared next to her, and she instinctively aimed her wand at his chest. He raised his empty hands in alarmed surrender, and she took several deep breaths to calm herself down.

"Sorry," she said, her voice coming out high and faint. "It's just, the last time I was here... I mean..."

"I know," he said quickly. "We can go somewhere else if you want, this was just the first place I thought of."

"No, of course it is, of course it is. Right. A good place to work on getting rid of the Dark Mark. Can't be at Hogwarts. Right."

"Actually, Hermione, I was thinking, we don't have to work on the Dark Mark today, I mean..." Draco was running a hand through his blonde hair, looking more uncertain of himself than she had ever seen him. He cleared his throat. "I mean, we're both behind on homework, and my library is a good place to work, away from everything, and Giovanni would never see us together here, we could just catch up on Charms or something... I mean, if you want-"

Hermione marched up to the pale Slytherin and threw her arms around him, tears springing to her eyes. No one had ever, in her entire life at Hogwarts, suggested catching up on homework in place of an alternative activity. "You have no idea what this means to me," she whispered. "I - I don't even know how to - oh come _here_!" She grabbed his hand and aimed her wand at it, uttering Harry's feelings-transfer spell. " _Emotus Translatio!_ "

"Merlin, Hermione!" yelped Draco, wrenching his hand away and clutching his chest. "I think if you sent me any more gratitude, my cold icy heart might actually crack in two."

Hermione laughed. "Sorry," she said, "I'm just _really_ grateful for the opportunity to study, we _do_ both need to catch up, and your library sounds perfect, it really does..." she trailed off, looking once again through the black gates towards the Manor.

Draco's hand had found its way to her shoulder. "Are you sure, about my library?"

"Yes," she said firmly. "If I had to avoid every place Voldemort had ever been, I'd never go anywhere." Taking Draco's hand, she let him lead her through the gates and across the vast lawn, neither of them really noticing when they had stopped speaking aloud.

_'Son of Merlin's Whore, eh? Your insults always were more clever than Weasley's.'_

Hermione laughed. _'Real wizards first? That's a new one too.'_

_'We should tell people we each went different places this afternoon. What's your alibi going to be?'_

_'I'll tell anyone who asks that Harry offered me Grimmauld Place to study at over the weekends. Harry's already told his house-elf, Kreacher, to spread that story as well.'_

_'Perfect. My story will be that I'm here, which Blinky can attest to.'_

As they approached the front entrance, Hermione thought that Malfoy Manor looked less intimidating in the afternoon sunlight, its ornate carvings glittering with an unmistakeable aura of old power.

_'How did things go with Giovanni this morning?'_

_'He seemed to buy that I felt alone and abandoned, with my parents in Azkaban, the Voldemort sympathizers still angry with me, and that you, the only other person besides him who had reached out to me, were now gone from my life too.'_

_'Good, so the act worked.'_ They reached the main entrance and the tiny house-elf Blinky opened the door as they approached them, bowing low as they passed. Hermione smiled and thanked the young house-elf aloud.

_'I think so. Now that I suspect him it's obvious. He was acting exactly like my father used to when he spotted a potential Death Eater recruit. In fact, now that I think about it, he might have been testing the waters on me from the beginning of the year, by telling me about his past, becoming gym buddies, and so on. He probably didn't bother to recruit me when he learned I have plenty of money and was becoming friends with you. But if we keep up the act, I think I can get him to spill after another three or four sessions. Possibly with the help of Max Carrow.'_

Hermione let go of his hand and stopped walking in front of a large, ornate mirror decorated with intertwining snakes. "Max!?"

"Yes, I'm going to get him in on this tomorrow. It'd be even easier to convince Giovanni to recruit him, he's much angrier about the war and has far less money than I."

"But he's only a second year!"

Draco scowled. "The age that you and your two idiot friends were running around trying to defeat a Basilisk, as I recall."

"But you didn't see the teachers begging us to help them, did you? It's not right!"

"Hermione, trust me when I say, the kid needs direction right now. He's angry because he couldn't do anything in the fight when his parents got tortured and captured. This is an actual action he can take, against the person who's been stealing his things, and we could use him."

Hermione frowned and folded her arms tightly, shaking her head. "It's not right."

Draco shrugged, hands in his pockets. "It's too late. I've already promised him. Or do you want me to go back on my word, and then have him sneaking around trying to figure out what we're up to, leaving him a prime target for recruiters because he doesn't have any other role models?"

She sighed, suspecting that Draco might benefit from trying to be a role model as much as Max would benefit from his efforts. "Fine. Now where is this library?"

* * *

Neville's mind wandered to his latest Herbology readings as he climbed the stairs on his usual route to his parents' ward at St. Mungo's. He wondered to himself, as he so often did these days, why he was spending his time as a new Auror recruit, hunting down insane Dark wizards and criminals, when he could be tending to a magical garden somewhere quiet. Somewhere quiet with someone like Luna Lovegood.

He sighed as he reached floor seven, the long-term treatment ward. The hallway had expanded, the number of permanently damaged wizards and witches having increased tenfold since before Voldemort's second rise to power. _Don't look_ , he told himself, _just keep walking_...

Naturally, Neville's eyes glanced through every door anyway, his ears hearing every tortured cry of grieving relatives, every moan of the permanently insane, every brisk command of the senior Healers.

As he passed door number seven hundred and thirteen, something stopped him dead in his tracks. Checkered stockings under a flimsy grey skirt. Matted grey hair. A throaty voice growling at a junior Healer.

"Thieves, you are! Thieves! Who in the Wizarding world can afford that kind of price? The Ministry _promised_ it would pay for the expenses of my daughter's treatments! She was a casualty of the war!"

"I'm sorry, Ma'am," the young Healer was trying to explain. "The Ministry has been running low on funds, so all the aid is going towards acute injuries that can be healed more easily, I'm afraid your daughter doesn't fit those criteria..."

"I'm taking her home," said the old woman - it must be Alexa Wadsworth - shakily. "I'm taking her home away from you useless fools who took all of my money and gave my daughter nothing."

The Healer nodded sadly. "It's your decision, Ma'am. I'm sorry that there's nothing more we can do. If you want, we can keep her in a minimal amount of pain at a much lower cost, she would just need to be brought in for weekly treatment, only two Galleons per week."

"Half my salary, you mean," Alexa's gravelly voice sounded defeated. "I'll bring her back in a week, then."

"In a week," the young witch confirmed.

"Merlin curse that Malfoy boy, I'll kill him if it's the last thing I do," Alexa muttered under her breath as she and the Healer helped a young woman on the hospital bed, whose face was contorted with pain, to her feet.

Neville felt sick at the scene, standing frozen outside the door. Alexa had been on the list of suspects for the Hogwarts thievery until Giovanni became the prime suspect, yet they had disregarded the possibility because they assumed the Ministry was paying for the treatment of her daughter. But now - now she certainly seemed to need the money after all...

As an Auror, he knew he should take this opportunity to investigate, but as mother and daughter approached the door, Neville found himself shaking his head and turning to continue towards his parents' ward. He knew how it felt, and criminal or not, he couldn't bring himself to interrupt.

"Definitely should have been a gardener," he mumbled to himself as he shuffled past Hermione's confused parents towards his own.

* * *

The look on Hermione's face when they entered the vast Malfoy Library was one that Draco made sure to etch into his memory permanently - the way her eyebrows lifted, her jaw hanging open slightly as her intelligent brown eyes swept the room, the very picture of joyful wonder. Her expression only intensified as he showed her around, careful to hurry past the shelves of books on Dark Magic and linger in the sections on Pureblood wizarding history, astronomy, Muggle science, magical fiction...

This was the memory he envisioned as they practiced Patronus charms, Hermione's otter weak and wispy as usual, but his own silver spell stronger than it had ever been before. On one occasion, his Patronus even sprouted reptilian wings, though it still was not a full-bodied animal, and his Dark Mark still ached deeply afterwards.

They practiced Disillusionment Charms, easily worked through their Arithmancy homework together, and settled into a companionable silence as Hermione sat down to finish History of Magic while he translated his ancient runes. His left hand found hers across their table, and she smiled down at her parchment as their right hands kept writing.

After several chimes of the grandfather clock on the wall, Hermione put down her quill and rubbed her sore neck with her free hand.

_'You and I, we wasted six years fighting instead of doing this, didn't we?'_

Draco raised his eyebrows, not looking up. _'Done with your History of Magic essay, then?'_

_'Just finished. Need help finishing up Ancient Runes?'_

_'_ Help? _Over your dead Muggle-born body.'_

Hermione chuckled, letting go of his hand, and wandered around the room, picking up random books from his shelves and flipping through them while he finished translating the last of his Runes. Finally Draco finished his work, closed his books, and approached her bushy head of hair quietly from behind. He snaked his long arms around her waist, causing her to jump slightly.

"Found the records of Malfoy family history, I see," he drawled, peering over her shoulder at the open book in her hands.

Hermione blushed. "I never knew you were related to the Princes. To Snape, then, too."

"Distantly, yes, and I naturally used his tendency towards nepotism to my greatest advantage in his Potions classes."

"You snake," she said accusingly, snapping the book shut and returning it to its original position on the shelf.

"Dragon," he corrected. "Draco means dragon, not snake, though I'll take the compliment."

She twisted around in his arms to face him, placing her hands on his chest. "I didn't mean it as a-"

"Join me for dinner, here at the Manor?" he interrupted, his heart pounding traitorously under her touch, and managed a smirk in a last-ditch attempt to hide his nervous anticipation. "Dine with a snake?"

Hermione's breathing became shallow as her brown eyes stared up into his, but she attempted to jest in return. "You'd dine with a Muggle-born? At Malfoy Manor?"

He nodded once, her proximity nearly making him forget to breathe himself, and reached up to brush a smudge of ink off her cheek, the black spot vanishing magically under his thumb. "If you'd dine with a Death Eater."

She gave him a half smile and nodded back. "Blinky will cook for us?" she asked, running her finger slowly up the silver chain of the Slytherin pendant hanging from his neck.

"If that's all right with you," he found himself murmering in response.

"Of course, I like your new house-elf. I hope you treat him well?"

Draco could only manage to nod again. They had somehow come even closer together, her lips only inches from his, and restrained his tormented thoughts from entering her mind. Was he really about to do this? Kiss a Muggle-born witch in the middle of the Malfoy Library? _Oh, just do it already, you coward_ , came a thought from the back of his mind, and he wasn't sure whether it was his or Hermione's...

"Master Draco treats Blinky very well, Mistress, very well indeed!"

The house-elf was standing in the doorway, watching them happily. Draco sighed. _'Not in front of the children,'_ he sent her, not sure whether to be furious or thankful for the elf's interference. Hermione laughed and pulled away from his embrace, leaving his entire body aching with pent-up desire. Furious. Definitely furious.

"Blinky heard Mistress Hermione call his name, Blinky is very happy to serve! Blinky is the son of Dobby the Free, Blinky is honored to cook again for a friend of Harry Potter!" the elf squeaked, jumping excitedly up and down on the library carpet.

"You're Dobby's son?" gasped Hermione, and looked from Blinky to Draco. The young house-elf nodded happily and continued to hop.

"Dobby had an elfling with that Winky elf," Draco scowled, "the one who used to work for Barty Crouch. Blinky here came to me a few months ago, begging to work for his father's former master. Wouldn't leave me alone until I agreed." Currently, he was deeply regretting this decision.

Hermione beamed and ran over to Blinky, extending her hand most improperly to the house-elf. "It's very nice to meet you! I knew your parents well. How is your mother doing?"

The elf blinked his large eyes and backed away. "Winky told Blinky never to shake a witch's hand!" he squeaked. "Blinky mustn't!"

"Well, then, no need," said Hermione kindly, and Draco was glad that she didn't press the issue. Then she had to open her mouth again. "But maybe you could join us for dinner some time?"

"Hermione, that is _not_ what I had in mind-" Draco started, but Blinky had thrown himself to the floor in gratitude, crawling up to Hermione's leg and hugging her calf, squeaking an incoherent stream of excited thanks and blinking up hopefully at Draco. He sighed. Blinky was still an elfling, so these kinds of things could be allowed for now. But later, he told himself, he'd have to teach Hermione about the proper ways to treat a house-elf, and actually explain to her how their magic worked, which he was sure no one had ever done properly.

"Some other time, Blinky, if you're good. Now scurry along and prepare us dinner," snapped Draco, and the elf saluted and scampered out, nearly tripping over the carpet as he left.


	27. Apparate Away With Me

Hermione spent a few minutes in front of the large snake-lined mirror in the hallway while Draco was upstairs getting changed into dress robes, Transfiguring her robes into an elegant black dinner gown, slicing the sleeves off at the shoulders and shrinking the cut material into long silver gloves. Adding a few enchanted sparkles here and there for good measure, pulling her hair back into a loose bun, she looked at her finished image and laughed. She really could pull off the Pureblood royalty look, mimicing the style that she often saw in the pictures of the Ministry gala in the Daily Prophet.

Adjusting her left glove to more fully cover her forearm, she shuddered as her _Mudblood_ scar gave a spasm of pain. She was only a few rooms down from where it had happened. _Gryffindor courage_ , she told herself. _Face your fears like a Gryffindor_.

Then Draco stepped around the corner at the end of the hall, fully clad in handsome dress robes of his own. He froze, looking her up and down, standing stock still as if Petrified. Hermione giggled. No one had looked at her like that since Viktor Krum had greeted her at the Yule Ball.

Slowly he approached her and bowed, taking her gloved hand in his, then both of them laughed at the absurdity of the whole situation. "Well? What do you think?" she asked, turning slightly to show off her Transfigured gown.

"Marvellous," he said casually, and winked. "Though you're always marvellous." Hermione's stomach flipped pleasantly.

Dinner was an Indian curry, Blinky squeaking happily about how he had learned it from watching his mother in the Hogwarts kitchens as he scurried around them, whisking away plates and adding new ones. They ended up talking about their childhoods, Draco being raised in a sort of bubble here at the Manor, Hermione and her parents out in the Muggle world... Somehow, talking of the distant past seemed to erase some of the painful memories of the recent years - Hermione recalling her parents as they were and as she hoped they would be again, Draco lost in a time when his mother was happy, his father influential, when Dobby was his friend rather than a punching bag for his frustrations. Blinky lingered around bashfully at any mention of his father, disappearing around a corner as soon as one of them would glance his way.

As they finished off Blinky's fruit parfaits for dessert, the setting sun gleamed through the stained glass windows of the parlor.

"Your Patronus is getting so much better, I'm sure you'll make a full animal soon," Hermione said thoughtfully. "We saw wings, I wonder what it will be?"

"A Pterodactyl, I hope." Draco picked up the napkin from his lap and roughly wiped yogurt off his lips. "I hear the dinosaurs used to be powerful magical creatures."

Hermione burst out laughing. "And who told you that?"

"Looney Lovegood, when she was a prisoner here." Hermione's face fell, and Draco continued quickly. "She said she understood why we had to keep her prisoner to shut her father up, that it would be detrimental to the Ministry for the Wizarding population to know about Dinosaur magic."

Hermione shook her head and smiled again. "You know, I used to think Luna actually believed all the ridiculous stuff she says. She believes some of it, but sometimes I think she says outlandish things just to make light of serious situations."

Draco nodded. "I'm glad I didn't have to torture her."

A tense silence fell, and Draco sipped at his water, looking everywhere but at Hermione.

"Blinky will clean up for Master Draco and Mistress Hermione now! Blinky is a very good cleaner!"

"Don't boast, Blinky," snapped Draco, in that moment sounding very much like his father. Blinky gasped and slapped himself lightly on the forehead, then bowed and started to whisk their plates away.

Hermione frowned at Draco. "I think you need new memories."

"What?"

"You probably can't produce a Patronus because all your happy memories are clouded. You think of Luna making you laugh, and it reminds you of torturing Ollivander. You think of your mother, and it reminds you of her imprisonment. You think of me..." she turned bright red and stopped mid-sentence.

He raised his eyebrow at her, standing up and walking over to her side of the table. "I think of you and...?"

"Never mind," she said quickly, defensively pulling her gloves up a little higher on her forearms.

He took her hands and pulled her to her feet, turning down the sleeves of her long gloves insistently and holding her forearms in his hands. ( _'There's no need to hide these scars from me,'_ he sent unconsciously.)

"I think of you," he said in a low voice, "and my Patronus sprouts wings. You've already given me more good memories than you realize."

Hermione blinked. "Oh! I didn't even think of trying thoughts of you... I mean, for my own Patronus. I wonder..." She turned away and picked up her wand from the table, then hesitated and glanced over her shoulder towards Draco, who, of all people, was learning to look past her heritage and accept her for who she was, scars and all...

She ripped off her long gloves entirely and raised her wand. " _Expecto Patronum!_ " Her otter burst forth immediately, its silver light hopping around the room, seeming to grow larger and more menacing before vanishing into wisps of smoke.

"That's stronger than I've _ever_... wow..."

Draco was smiling when she turned back around, a real, genuine smile softening his stark, pale features. "What do you say we go make some more good memories right now?" He leaned forward to whisper into her ear. "Apparate away with me?" Blinky scurried around them, snapping his fingers and making the sturdy silver dishes pile haphazardly into his arms, nearly upsetting his balance as he staggered from the room under their weight.

He gazed into her eyes again and Hermione found herself mesmerized by the grey eyes that were no longer cold. She called out to Blinky as she took Draco's arm. "Thanks for dinner, Blinky, hope to see you again!"

"Blinky is happy to cook for Mistress Hermione, Blinky is happy to ser-"

With a _pop!_ , Draco had Apparated them away.

* * *

He brought them to his favorite magical rock island in the middle of the Pacific. It was morning on this side of the globe, the sun rising behind wispy clouds on the horizon. The familiar smell of salty waves and green moss filled Draco with a sense of peace and power all at once.

"The tip of the Lost Mountain of Orcalda, my parents say. Have you been here?"

Hermione gasped, and once again he drank in the sight of her joyous expression of wonder. "The Lost Mountain! Where it was said that the last of the orcs died out in the Second Great Wizarding War?"

Draco smirked. "You did pay attention in History of Magic, didn't you? Not many people know of this place. It doesn't show up on Muggle oceanographers' maps, the orcs had hidden it too well with magic of their own, and the enchantments seem to have stuck."

"This is amazing!" After walking around and taking in the surroundings, watching a whale surface for air and a crab crawl along the moss, Hermione walked up to him and held out her arm. "My turn." Draco couldn't help but grin.

 _Pop!_ They were in a bright, sunny desert, with red rocky cliffs rising in the distance. "Mexico!" she exclaimed. "Went here once when I was little, with my parents."

"It's... wow. I've never been here before..." Hermione was beaming, and Draco looked around, taking in the scenery. They started walking aimlessly through the desert, tiny lizards skittering away around the rocks at their feet.

"I was thinking, about your parents," he said after a while, "I'd be happy to pay your way through St. Catterwalls, I mean, you got me out of Azkaban to finish my education, I'd love to return the favor-"

"Oh no, I couldn't!" exclaimed Hermione. "I couldn't accept that."

Draco's eyebrows raised to his forehead in disbelief. "You're supposed to say 'thank you, my Lord Malfoy'. I'm offering to pay for you! I know you said no to your friends this morning to spare them the cost, but you must know that the cost is _nothing_ to me..."

She shook her head vigorously. "That's not why I said no, Harry could easily afford it. I just want to make my own way in life! I don't want to be indebted-"

"It's _me_ who's in _your_ debt!" How could a person possibly be this stubborn? "I can't believe you're even trying to refuse this. Isn't it what you wanted, to go to St. Catterwalls'? And now you have a willing sponsor and you're throwing it away?"

"Unlike the Hogwarts girls who throw themselves at your feet, _Lord Malfoy_ , I do _not_ want to be some poor Mudblood charity case!" Hermione folded her arms and glared up at him.

His eyes flashed with anger, beads of sweat now rolling down his pale forehead as the afternoon sun beat down mercilessly on their heads. "How could you even _think_ that that is what you'd be, to me?"

"Then what WOULD I be, to you?" she exclaimed, and immediately felt heat rising to her cheeks that had nothing to do with the desert sun. He stared at her, speechless, a torrent of emotion flickering across his face.

"It's hot, out here, isn't it?" he muttered finally, raising his arm for her to take.

 _Pop!_ It was pitch black, and Draco muttered a quick _Lumos_ to reveal their surroundings. They were in Seers' Cave, which Hermione recognized by her Divination books as the cave in which Seers often harvested their crystal balls. She took a deep breath and entwined her fingers in his, finding it easier to communicate via thoughts than with words.

_'Thank you for offering, it's very generous of you. I'm just really hoping it won't be necessary.'_

Draco squeezed her hand and seemed to relax slightly, but his thoughts still came through harshly. _'I don't understand you. I offer up my library for a bit of study time and you thank me as if I had just taken a Killing Curse for you, but I offer to put you through college and you refuse?'_

 _'But studying will help me get into-'_ Hermione sighed and closed her eyes, her wandlit features embarrassed and remorseful, and Draco was glad she realized her own hypocrisy before finishing that sentence. Damn her beautiful face. He couldn't even find it in him to stay angry.

_'You don't have to do everything by yourself, you know. You'd never get anywhere. And that has nothing to do with your blood status.'_

_'That's what I've had to tell Harry the last seven years.'_ Hermione chuckled and opened her eyes, then looked down as if ashamed. _'I'm just not used to be the one needing help.'_

Draco was silent for a long moment, the crystal cave shimmering before them under the wandlight. _'Neither am I.'_

He felt her shift closer to him, and a familiar warmth rushed through his system as she rested her head on his shoulder. "I haven't even _seen_ St. Catterwall's yet," she said aloud, her voice echoing off the cavern walls. "Maybe I won't even like it."

"We can fix that," he murmered into her hair. "I've never been there either, but I've heard they have a magically concealed Astronomy tower that is higher than anything else in London. They even have Dimming Charms on it that let you see the naked sky through the London light pollution and smog. I bet if we envision it we can Apparate there."

Hermione gasped, as he had expected. "Blind Apparition? We could Splinch ourselves, trying to Apparate to a place we've never been before! That's practically elf magic!"

"How hard could it be? Focus on the St. Catterwall's Astronomy tower and Disapparate." He switched back to thoughts. _'I've always wanted to try blind Apparition, and I feel ready. I know you are too. If anyone can do it, it would be the two of us, working together.'_

He could feel her hesitating, but one glance into her wandlit eyes told him that he had won the argument. "Nox," he muttered, and darkness engulfed them as his wandlight went out. Pocketing his wand in his robes, he turned to take Hermione's other hand in his.

"Wait!" She whipped out her wand and rapped him over the head with it. The cool tingling feeling of a Disillusionment charm washed over him, and he heard her do the same to herself. "We can't be seen together by wizards. This will allow us to get away unseen if there is anyone else on the tower."

"Good thinking." He took her hands again after she slipped her wand into the beaded bag she always carried around her shoulder.

"Okay, remember, Destination, Determination, Deliberation," Hermione recited. "On the count of three, then?"

"One... two... three..."

They held tight to each other as they were sucked into the void, focusing all their energy on the place they wanted to be, a place they had never been. When reality dissolved into view, they found themselves on a tall tower, looking down at the streets and buildings of London shimmering dimly below them, the clear night sky sparkling brillliantly above their heads.

" _Hominem Revelio!_ " When Hermione's spell found that they were alone, she tapped them both on the head again, removing the Disillusionment Charms, and promptly broke into giggles. "We did it!"

* * *

A long while later, having talked about everything from the workings of the city below them to the vastness of the night sky above, the pair lapsed into a pensive silence. The full moon was shining brightly overhead, and Hermione thought she heard a howl in the distance. Still clad in her Transfigured dinner gown, she shivered from the chilly night air and Draco put a hand on her upper back, not taking his eyes off the sky.

After several minutes of standing side by side, listening to the distant rumble of the city streets below, Draco spoke.

"Ever wonder if it's possible to Apparate to the moon?"

Hermione gasped and felt an intoxicating thrill as she realized she had never, once in her entire life, considered that question... but now that it was said, it seemed to be the most natural question in the world. Muggles had gone to the moon, so why not wizards? Why couldn't they combine Muggle technology, like space suits, with magic to travel farther than ever before?

"Of _course_... we can Apparate across the globe, how much harder could it be? And maybe we could find habitable planets elsewhere, and help humanity move as a backup in the case of a global catastrophe..." she continued excitedly, relaying her racing thoughts to Draco as they came to her.

"Now _that's_ ambition," he chuckled. "It's a shame. You would have made an excellent Slytherin."

"Draco, this - yes, we have to test it - in a safe way of course, maybe with Muggle spacesuits... I don't see a reason it shouldn't be possible! Unless it's already been attempted... we should look it up..."

She faltered as he traced two long, pale fingers down her cheek and leaned in to press his lips fervently to hers. And she kissed him back, the Muggle-born with the Pureblood, the maiden of Gryffindor and the Slytherin prince, sharing soft kisses that felt like forgiveness, that tasted of truth, that spoke of promises and ambition, passion and companionship. Their thoughts mingled nearly indistinguishably...

_'This is all right with you, then?'_

_'Of course it is.'_

_'You have no idea how long I've wanted this...'_

Finally they pulled apart and looked into each others' eyes, breathing heavily. Hermione felt as if a great burden had just lifted off her shoulders. That nagging, deep-seated fear that she, as a Muggle-born, was somehow out of place, somehow less worthy, less belonging, than the Pureblood families in the Wizarding world, the same fear that propelled her to study harder than everyone else, to prove her worth...

Yet here was Draco Malfoy, the proudest child of the proudest Pureblood family in existence, kissing her with passion, with _respect_. It was as if several great stone walls with iron gates that so deeply divided the Wizarding community had just been Vanished into oblivion. Finishing off Voldemort had been a relief, a hope for a better tomorrow, but this... this _was_ the better tomorrow. This was peace.

"Draco Perseus Malfoy," she said, tilting her head to one side and tracing her fingers along his forearm. "I don't think you need to remove your Dark Mark at all. It's the rest of the Wizarding world that needs to learn how to be more forgiving."

He took a sharp breath and pulled her into a tight embrace, hiding his face from her as she felt his body tremble with silent sobs. She held him closely for several minutes before he seemed to compose himself, wiping his eyes and pulling back, tucking a curl of hair behind her ear.

"We're going to have to pretend to hate each other again, when we get back to Hogwarts, aren't we?"

Hermione sighed and nodded. It was getting late. "At least until next Saturday. Or until the culprit is caught."

"In that case," he replied, "let's make this one count."

And as they leaned in for their lips to meet again, Draco pulled out his wand, whispered " _Extensio momentus!_ " and slowed down time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you catch what I did with the phases of the moon throughout the book?


	28. Expecto Patronum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't particularly like this chapter, but every time I try to get rid of it or change it I end up leaving it in. Feel free to skip to the next and just know that Draco forgives himself a bit more now and can now cast a Patronus (though his Dark Mark is still there).

That night, standing on Slytherin tower, gazing southwards to make sure Hermione had gotten back safely, Draco Malfoy absentmindedly rubbed his oddly painless Dark Mark, his lips still tingling with Hermione's warmth. He walked slowly around the ledge on the tower to the north end, and looked determinedly at his constellation in the sky.

The Hogwarts bell tower struck midnight.

" _EXPECTO PATRONUM!_ " he cried, not wasting another moment, and a great silver dragon burst forth from his wand, soaring into the night sky, lingering over the constellation that was its namesake.

* * *

Hermione Granger, still giddy from the events of the evening, padded back out in her slippers to the ledge on Gryffindor Tower, deciding to test whether her Patronus would indeed be stronger with the happy memories she had just gained.

The Hogwarts bell tower struck midnight.

" _Expecto Patronum!_ " she whispered into the night, and to her immense surprise, the animal that charged from her wand was not an otter at all, but a roaring silver lion, bounding up towards the constellation of Leo in the southern sky. Glimpsing another silver animal out of the corner of her eye, she turned to see a dragon Patronus soaring in the north. "Draco!" she breathed, beaming. "You did it!"

* * *

The smoxmarxes were definitely out in full force tonight. Luna Lovegood was perched on the railing of the Ravenclaw Tower ledge, her bare feet dangling over the precipice. She hummed a tune to herself as she pondered the Ravenclaw ghost's latest riddle.

The Hogwarts bell tower struck midnight.

Two impressive Patronuses, a dragon and a lion, erupted nearly simultaneously from the Gryffindor and Slytherin towers. Luna watched them with interest. "Oh, are we conjuring Patronuses today?" she asked aloud to no one. "Maybe mine will change tonight, it feels like that sort of evening. _Expecto Patronum!_ " A glowing swan burst forth from her wand, soaring up into the sky.

"It's a shame Cygnus isn't up yet tonight," she said to herself, looking at the low constellation partially obscured by the Forbidden Forest. "Then the swan would have a constellation to match with, like the others. But that's all right. Just because we can't see it doesn't mean it's not there."

* * *

Hannah Abbott made her way slowly back up to her room on the top of the new Hufflepuff Tower after a long day down in the common rooms. It _still_ felt odd, to have to climb all these stairs to reach the Hufflepuff wing. Checking in Ernie's window to make sure he had made it back safely from wherever he had been off to this time, she made her way around to her bedroom.

The Hogwarts bell tower struck midnight.

Hannah gasped as two gigantic Patronuses, a dragon and a lion, launched from Slytherin and Gryffindor towers. She squinted into the night, but couldn't make out who cast them. Teachers, perhaps? Could it be the other returning seventh/eighth year students?

Just then, a third Patronus, a silver swan, soared upwards from Ravenclaw tower. Hannah put a hand over her gaping mouth. Could it be? Professor Trelawney had told them of a prophecy made by her great-great-great-grandmother, a symbolic day of peace and unity that would mark the beginning of the end of the destructive House rivalries, one signal from each of the Hogwarts Houses being cast at midnight into the sky.

She looked around wildly as the clock continued to sound out the midnight bells. _Dong!... Dong!..._ It must be at seven or eight strikes, there wasn't much time left. Where was the Hufflepuff that was going to cast the fourth Patronus?

_Dong!... Dong!..._

Then it struck her, like the hammer on the bell. She was the only Hufflepuff awake on the tower. Whipping out her wand, ever loyal to her House, to her school, to the Wizarding world, Hannah knew what she had to do.

" _Expecto Patronum!_ " Her bear patronus lumbered into the night sky, settling on the great constellation of Ursa Major at the zenith, lining up with Leo and Draco as the Ravenclaw bird soared around them in graceful figure eights.

* * *

Professor McGonagall watched from the Headmaster's office as the four Patronuses soared into the night sky. A tear escaped the corner of her eye as she took in the sight. "Albus! Severus!" she whispered to the portraits of the former Headmasters behind her. "Do you see?"

"Well, it would seem Sybill Trelawney can be right even more often than once per decade," said the portrait of Albus Dumbledore, a twinkle in his eye.

"I don't see anything of great interest," sneered Severus Snape, gliding into his frame, staring longingly at the smiling picture of Lily Potter that he had demanded McGonagall place facing him on her desk.

"Now now, Severus," smiled Dumbledore. "Just because you realized long ago that political differences meant nothing in the face of love, doesn't mean that we can't appreciate when our students come to understand it themselves."


	29. Alexa Wadsworth

It was Thursday evening, and Hermione collapsed onto her bed, blinking back tears. She knew that Draco could compartmentalize, push aside certain thoughts in favor of others, but it was still difficult for her to keep up the act after all they had shared on Saturday, it still hurt to feel his glares and take Mulciber's comments in class with no one jumping to her defense. She missed Harry, Ron, and Ginny more than ever, though at least Dean was a reasonable Potions partner, and she had gotten Dean and Preston Logan in on the plan in a quiet corner of the Gryffindor common room.

She forced herself to get up from her bed and brush her teeth properly, worrying once again about her parents and whether they'd ever get back to dentistry. No sooner had she finished changing into her sleepwear when she heard a muted whisper.

"Hermione."

She looked towards her door, puzzled. "Dean?" she called. "Is that you?" Hermione jumped as she thought she felt something brush her shoulder, but when she looked behind her, nothing was there.

"In the mirror, over here," came the whisper. She turned to see Draco's reflection standing behind hers in her large mirror, smirking mischievously. Her stomach flipped over at the sight.

"Draco! Don't sneak up on me like that, I... I could have been naked!" she wasn't sure whether to smile or glower at him, and she saw her reflection settle on an exasperated frown.

"Doesn't sound so bad to me," he winked at her, and she rolled her eyes but found herself smiling.

"So you're in your room? You figured out how to move your reflection?" She felt the brushing sensation again as his reflection's hand touched her shoulder in the mirror.

"I had nothing else to do when you passed out on my chest last week but Summon all your papers and see what you figured out," his muted voice echoed from the mirror. "It's not so hard when you get to skip right to Attempt number One Hundred Twenty-Four."

Their faces became somber simultaneously as they realized they were safely alone for the first time since Saturday. Hermione wordlessly pressed her hands to the glass and pushed her soul to join Draco's in the dim world of reflections. She opened her eyes to see herself face to face with reflection-Draco, a mirror image of his usual features, the part in his hair on the other side of his head, the soft frown lopsided the wrong way.

"You look backwards," he said hesitantly.

She raised an eyebrow. "Good to see you too."

Then he pulled her to him and his lips descended on hers, kissing her fiercely, their reflections clinging to each other desperately as their real bodies sat limply on opposite sides of the Hogwarts castle.

"You know - I didn't mean - any of it - this week - " Draco's muffled reflection-voice hissed between kisses that tasted like glass, touches that didn't feel quite real, their usual weak-Legilimens connection not working in the mirror.

"I know - I know -" she reassured him, moaning as his reflected tongue snaked its way into her reversed mouth, finding herself responding with a passion she had never felt with Ron or Viktor - or Merlin forbid, McClaggen. And yet the reflected touches were still half-touches, the kisses not quite tangible, his normally solid body shimmering as if in water, leaving her feeling cold and unsatisfied no matter how desperately Draco wrenched their reflections together.

Eventually they pulled apart, their foreheads touching, catching their breath. "It's not real, and our bodies know it, don't they."

Draco nodded and groaned, turning away from her. "My real body is getting pretty exhausted too, I can feel it, it took me a while to find your mirror."

Hermione gasped. "Go back, then! Now! You know I can't come to your rescue if you pass out!"

"I just wanted to catch you up on our progress..."

She shook her head firmly. "Catch me up on Saturday. Malfoy Manor, one o'clock?"

He hesitated, but Hermione could see the exhaustion in his face, their passionate encounter having drained him of nearly all his remaining energy. His expression became an impassive stare, the passion of the moment receding into his usual cold blankness. "Malfoy Manor, one o' clock." Then he pressed his hands to the nearest mirror and vanished.

* * *

"Blinky," he managed to groan, lying immobile on the floor of his bedroom. "Blinky, come."

 _Crack!_ Draco's small house-elf appeared out of thin air, bowing low, then spotting Draco on the floor and bowing even lower until his head pressed into the ground.

"Fetch me that Restoring Draught on the table, and then go home and prepare me a bowl of soup."

"As you wish, sir!" Blinky snapped his fingers and the Restoring Draught flew into Draco's hand. _Crack!_ The house-elf vanished, and Draco managed to unstopper the bottle and sip at it slowly, feeling a warm energy start to flow through his veins. He sat up slowly. His throat was dry, his head throbbing. Reflection charms were no easy feat.

 _Crack!_ Five minutes later Blinky had returned with a steaming bowl of chicken soup, and hopped up and down excitedly as Draco spooned it shakily into his mouth.

"Thank you, Blinky." Blinky bowed. "Now, Hermione will probably be tired out too, so I want you to go to her room next and prepare her whatever she needs as well. But before you do -" he added hastily, "I order you not to tell a single witch or wizard about all the time Hermione and I have been spending together. Tell them that I was at my Manor alone, if they ask."

Blinky nodded, his eyes wide. "Blinky can keep secrets from witches and wizards! Blinky himself was kept secret by Winky until he was old enough to wash a dish!"

"Oh and one more thing, Blinky," said Draco loudly, as he thought he spotted a bushy head of hair whip past one of his mirrors. "Tell Hermione that it's really unnecessary to spend her own energy to come and check on me, though I know I couldn't stop her if I tried."

Hermione's blushing face slid into view in the mirror opposite his window, though Draco kept his eyes fixed on the elf, who was still blinking up at him, unaware of what had just happened. "Blinky was wondering, sir, does Master Draco love Mistress Hermione?" the elf squeaked, and Draco's pale skin turned a slightly pinker shade of white.

"Let's put it this way," he replied, staring straight at Hermione's reflection. "I'd be willing to do anything to help her in the ways she's helped me. Whether she'll let me is another matter entirely."

* * *

Alexa crouched down on the ledge of Slytherin Tower just beneath his window. His black curtains were drawn, but a tiny crack between them revealed a view of Draco Malfoy's large mirror on the opposite wall. She kept her wand trained on the mirror, her hand shaking. It was time. A single well-aimed curse at the mirror on the wall would reflect onto her target, destroy the young Death Eater the way he destroyed her daughter. She only needed to wait for the house-elf to leave, so that there would be no witnesses...

Then Hermione Granger's reflection appeared in the mirror beside Draco's. Figures! _That's_ why the traitorous girl spoke for him at the Ministry! They must be in _love_ , she was spending her nights the Death Eater's bedroom, of all the horrid places...

She could destroy both of them in one shot, yes, that would be justice! As soon as the house-elf left, it would be time...

"I nearly forgot to tell you when you visited me just now," the girl's muffled voice was saying. "Neville wrote, he said he saw Alexa and Amelia Wadsworth leaving St. Mungo's. The ministry is no longer paying for her treatment, because it would be too long-term and expensive."

Alexa froze as she watched any color that might have been in Draco's pale face drained away entirely. "How much," he demanded. "How much are they charging for her treatments."

"I'm not sure," said Hermione. "But I wanted you to know, because this puts Alexa back on the list of suspects. She _does_ need the money, it wouldn't be unreasonable for someone that desperate to start stealing..."

Alexa turned away, slumping against the wall beneath his window, tears running down her wrinkled face. Why did everyone seem to suspect her? And what was she _thinking_ , trying to permanently harm two Hogwarts students? It would only turn more suspicion in her direction, possibly land her in Azkaban and then truly unable to care for her daughter...

 _Crack!_ The house-elf had left. Horrified at her own thoughts and swearing to herself that she would never tell a single soul what she had just seen - or, Merlin forbid, what she had been about to do - she pocketed her wand quickly, scooted out of sight and crept back down the stairs, hurrying along the empty corridors of the castle as fast as her bony limbs would take her.


	30. Aurors at Hogwarts

_Bang bang bang._ "Hermione?" She clattered her spoon back into her bowl of soup, the knocking at her door breaking her out of her reverie, out of the fresh memory of pressing her reflection's lips to the wrong side of Draco's cold glass mirror as he kissed his own mirror in return, just before she vanished back into reality.

"Harry!" She threw open her door and was greeted by a tired-looking Harry and a disheveled Ron, hugging them both and leading them into her room.

Harry strode immediately over to her bed and collapsed onto it, kicking his shoes off and letting them drop onto the carpet with a thud. "We can't get anything done out there, Hermione," he groaned.

Ron stretched out into his usual position on the floor, nodding in agreement. "The Auror office has so many bloody _rules_ , it's no wonder they catch fewer Dark wizards than we did as kids at Hogwarts."

Hermione frowned, sitting down at her desk chair. "But according to the Prophet, you two and Neville have rounded up nearly all the new Voldemort sympathizer groups and a number of pettier thieves..."

Harry shook his head. "Leaves and branches off the Whomping Willow, Hermione, but it's not the root of the tree. The center of it all is here at Hogwarts, I can feel it, but Kingsley doesn't want us to be here, says we can't search Giovanni's or Alexa's office without a warrant, which requires a witness to his crimes! Same for the use of Veritaserum, it's insanity..."

"So you came to my room to hatch a plan to sneak in illegally?" Hermione finished for him. Harry nodded, and Hermione's frown deepened.

"Where'd you get that soup?" interrupted Ron.

"Blinky, Draco's house-elf," she whispered, then cast a _Muffliato_ charm on her door to be on the safe side. "Dobby and Winky had a son, did you know? He's working for Draco at the Manor now."

"Dobby and Winky... blimey, I didn't know... how fast do house-elves grow up?" asked Harry.

"Apparently they reach their full height in a year. He still seems like a kid though, I told him to go visit his mother down in the kitchens. He's probably there now." Hermione shrugged. "But back to the subject, are you sure this is a good idea? Draco said he'd fill us in on Saturday..."

"Saturday!" Harry sat up and scooted to the edge of the bed, throwing up his hands in frustration. "Hermione, the crime is increasing! We don't have _time_ to wait for Malfoy to get Giovanni to spill!"

Ron nodded. "And what if he doesn't go through with it? I mean, this is _Malfoy_ we're talking about." He glanced at Hermione uncomfortably.

Hermione sighed. "I think we should really just wait until Saturday..." But I have to admit, having Harry and Ron here and planning something together, I did miss this. "But if you want to take a look, I have the perfect way you can do it. Even less risk of being caught than using the Invisibility cloak. I can't go, I've already spent too long in there tonight, but..."

"You already spent too long in Giovanni's office?" said Ron, puzzled.

She sighed again. "No, _Ronald_ , too long in the place that lets you see everything. The mirrors at Hogwarts are all connected, and you can move your reflection to walk from mirror to mirror." Harry's eyes widened. "I'll show you the spell."

* * *

"Blimey, this is _weird_ ," said Ron's reflection to Harry's, the two of them having finally mastered Hermione's reflection separation spell on their own bodies. "Feels like I'm not in my real body."

"You're not, Ron," said Harry absently, listening carefully to the murmers that floated through the mirror world from all the rooms of the castle. He pulled his Invisibility cloak over them, which Hermione had encased in the mirror for them.

"Oh. Right."

"This way." Harry and Ron crept invisibly from mirror to mirror, peeking in every now and then to mostly empty classrooms, creeping past an occasional snoring professor, hurrying past a pillowfight in the third year Hufflepuff dormitories. Finally Harry heard, distantly, the two voices he had been listening for. And - could it be? - they seemed to be talking to each _other_.

Finally they found the right mirror, and hovered just behind it. It was Giovanni's office and quarters, and Alexa and Giovanni seemed to be having an argument just outside his open office door.

"...it's too _late_ for later! I need the money now! I found the blasted thing for you weeks ago! You _promised_!" Alexa's throaty voice sounded muffled on the other side of the glass.

"Ah, my la-dy, you-a just wait, in-a six weeks' time I will-a have plenty of funds, next-a paycheck, I will-a pay you then, Promise Charm, I'll-a do a Promise Charm, this time."

"Promise Charm," she growled, "so that this time at least you'll suffer if you fail!"

Harry and Ron heard the mutterings of a spell, and took the opportunity to shake off the constricting Invisibility Cloak and poke their heads more fully around to the mirror's view, looking around Giovanni's office for any sign of stolen goods. To their surprise, the entire office had hardly anything in it - a bare desk with a half-open drawer containing only what looked like a wristwatch, a broomstick leaning in the corner, and a chalkboard with scribbled lesson plans organized into neat little boxes.

"The bedroom and bathroom mirrors, let's check," whispered Harry, and he felt his way around the mirror world towards Giovanni's bedroom and bathroom, disappointed to see the same lack of evidence. Unless there was a box of Shrunken objects hidden under the bed, there was no place he could have possibly hidden all the stolen items.

They ducked back into the shadows of the mirror world as Giovanni strode back into his office, whistling an Italian folk tune. Harry turned and followed the receding foosteps of Alexa Wadsworth, mirror by mirror, Ron creeping along behind him, until they reached her quarters.

Hers was a mess of papers and portraits, floating candle decorations and piles of magical cleaning materials. And yet everything in the room was distinctly run-down, as though it was as aged and worn from life as the woman herself, no sign of stolen artifacts or expensive items that did not belong to her.

"Harry! Ron!" Hermione's voice suddenly whispered in their ears from what seemed like a great distance away. "You need to come back! Please come back!"

Harry and Ron looked at each other in alarm, ran to the nearest empty mirror and pressed their hands against it, trying three times before they got the incantation right. Finally they vanished back into reality with the cloak popping into existence at their sides, each of them sitting on the floor of Hermione's bedroom.

Harry groaned, reaching up to clutch his head, Ron rubbing his stomach with a wince of pain. "Ow."

"Oh thank goodness," said Hermione. "I _told_ you not to spend too long in there, it's really bad for you, here, drink this." She knelt down and thrust a vial of Restoring Draught into each of their hands.

"Wow, Hermione, where'd you get this stuff?" said Ron gratefully, taking a sip and then gulping the rest down.

"Erm, Draco and I brewed some extra in Potions class a few weeks ago, he's really good - I mean..."

"You mean _you're_ really good at Potions, Hermione," said Harry, grinning. "And you really do trust Mal-" he heistated. " _Draco_ \- these days, don't you?"

She nodded, looking down her hands, grateful that Harry had put in the effort to say his name.

"Well, we might have to go with the git's plan after all," grumbled Ron. "Save an Undetectable Extension Charm, it doesn't look like either of them is hiding anything in their offices."

"Though hearing their conversation was worth it," put in Harry, and told Hermione about the tail end of the conversation that they had caught between Alexa and Giovanni.

"Of course!" gasped Hermione, "she must have found the mirror for him!"

"Yeah, that seems to make the most sense," said Ron, standing up and pacing about the small room, his Auror robes trailing behind him. "Alexa patrols the corridors all day anyway, hell, that's why they hired her, to help figure out the new castle layout. Giovanni could've promised to pay her if she found it, assuming he'd get ransom for your parents' memories..."

"...And then he smashed it in the process and couldn't pay her back," finished Harry, nodding. "C'mon, let's go talk to McGonagall, tell her to keep an eye on those two while our new Slytherin friend finishes his grand scheming plan."


	31. Occlumency

As he had done every morning for the last four weeks, Draco closed his eyes and focused on organizing his mind. Sifting through his experiences and only letting the dark ones come to the forefront, his ambition and lust for power and recognition, his anger at his mother's fate. He dug for his old cocky holier-than-thou attitude that he had liked to sport before Voldemort's return and let it decorate his thoughts.

Today was the day, he hoped. Giovanni had slowly warmed to his act, dropping hints about connections to old _Los Stregones_ partners that he could introduce Draco to in their last gym session. But while he still seemed slightly hesitant towards Draco, he was falling for Max Carrow's pretenses like a Hufflepuff off a broomstick. It only made sense; Max was parent-less and without money, forced to stay with a Squib relative over the summer, exactly the kind of confused young boy that the Sorcerers' Societies would love to recruit.

_Focus._ He needed to adopt, for just one more morning, the attitude that allowed him to remain perfectly calm when Mulciber ruined their brew in Potions class or insulted Hermione in Defense Against the Dark Arts. The one that allowed him to express true anger at the way the war had turned out, taking care that Giovanni should overhear him, only risking a wink at Max when he was sure no one else was watching.

The daily effort exhausted him, so that every evening he'd collapse on his bed, utterly spent, missing Hermione desperately, only risking a quick visit to her mirror on the rare nights that he felt up to it. And yet it was worth it, whether or not the plan worked - not only had Max eagerly joined in, but the boy knew which of the other young Slytherins were most angry about their possessions being stolen, and which of those hated Giovanni Bellavita and his ceaseless joviality. He trusted Max to quietly spread the truth about their plan to these students and these alone, and he watched as each day the lonely boy seemed to be surrounded by more and more friends and followers as he made his way back to the Slytherin common rooms each night, a group of companions that deftly kept apart under Giovanni's watch.

_Focus._ Time for the hardest part of every morning. Time to shove the thoughts of Hermione Granger that he indulged in every evening into a small cardboard box in the corner of his mind for the day. He had had to start resorting to wand-assisted memory sorting, of all things...

First, the physical memories. _Feel_ the cold dry wood of the desk underneath his fingertips, concentrate on that feeling, push aside everything that happened between them every Saturday afternoon. Every Saturday afternoon after their weekly check-in at Grimmauld Place with Potter and the other Aurors, when he'd finally be able to step out of the dingy old House of Black, wrap his arms around her small war-hardened frame and kiss her fiercely, Apparating them directly to his bedroom in the Manor...

_Push it aside._ The cold dry wood of the desk underneath his fingertips.

Then, the emotional connections. _Feel_ the anger at Potter and the Ministry fools who locked up his harmless mother in Azkaban. _Push_ aside every glance she risked at him as they brushed past each other in the corridors. _Push it aside._ The terribly unsatisfying, brief contact they had in the mirror world on those stolen dark nights. _Push it aside._ The overwhelming desire to touch even a fingertip to hers, to feel the comforting flow of thought between their minds, to resume their fascinating discussions on enchantments and Astronomy and Muggle/magic relations as they Apparated around the world together. _Push it, over there, into the box. Close the box, Draco. Close it._

He carefully aimed his wand at his head and closed the box, his mind unwilling to do so on its own. He took a deep breath. He was ready.

* * *

"Dray-co, Dray-co!" cried Giovanni in his usual fashion. "My man!"

"Giovanni." Draco nodded to the shorter but stockier wizard.

They did mat work in the Physical Training Room, taking turns throwing each other to the ground and breaking their own falls safely without magic. They had done these drills before, but today Draco had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, a feeling that Giovanni was trying to intentionally intimidate him. He could whip Draco to the floor with incredible ease and deftness, with moves that, if Giovanni had not trained him so well to roll gently into a fall or twist along with his attackers' force, could have broken his bones in several places.

Not that he was afraid of breaking a bone here in the gym. No, what made it unsettling was that Giovanni made perfectly clear, today, just how much he was holding back.

"Say, my man, we've been-a gym buddies for a while now, Dray-co, what do you say to-a joining me for a drink? Some-a buddies and I meet in the-a Leaky Cauldron Sunday evenings, chat over some-a Firewhisky?"

Sunday evenings... the nights he always met with Max in the music rooms. It was incredibly well-done. Draco was too familiar with Death Eater recruitment tactics not to recognize a master at work. Meeting at a loud bar where their conversation would blend seamlessly into the anonymous cacophony of sounds, suggesting a time at which it would be all too easy to bring Max along as well...

_Give him what he wants. Walk into it._

"I'd love to sometime, but I've been giving Max Carrow snakophone lessons on Sunday evenings at seven, I can't make it then..."

"Ah, no problemo! Come on over afterwards, we'll still-a be there, and bring-a your little friend, the Leaky Cauldron can give him a nice-a butterbeer to enjoy!"

Perfect. "All right," he said evenly, nodding. "I'll see if he wants to join in."


	32. Warning Signs

Draco Apparated to the doorstep of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, rubbing his sore arms and shoulders as he stepped over the threshold. Shutting the door firmly behind him, he took out his wand and opened the box of thoughts he had pushed into a corner, collapsing against the wall and closing his eyes in exhaustion as his uncontrolled thoughts flooded feverishly back into his mind.

"Harry, is that you?" Hermione's voice called from the next room. Light footsteps padded down the hallways, and he smiled and opened his eyes a crack to see his favorite bushy head of hair poke around the corner. "Draco!"

He marched up to her and threaded his hands through her thick brown hair, claiming her lips with his, not caring who might be watching from the living room, not bothering to wait...

_'I missed you, so, so much this time...'_

_'I missed you too...'_ Hermione somehow managed to pull away from him slightly despite his best attempts at protest, and he was surprised to see lines of worry etching into her face. "Harry and Ron aren't here yet, I don't know what's holding them up..."

"Ah," he registered, faintly remembering where he was. "So that's why I don't hear gagging noises in the background."

"It's just, not like them to be this late..."

He cut her off by kissing her again. _'Hermione...'_

 _'Draco, what's wrong? What happened?'_ She pushed away from his grip and firmly led him to Harry's couch, sitting beside him as he collapsed down onto it, rubbing his eyes and threading his fingers through hers.

"I think Giovanni's going to recruit us tomorrow. He invited me and Max to meet him and his 'buddies' at the Leaky Cauldron tomorrow evening."

"But that's great! I mean - isn't that what you were trying for?" She looked confused.

"Sure, great." Draco wasn't even sure why he felt so unsettled. "As long as we have a witness or Auror or two with us, maybe Potter under his cloak, it should all be over tomorrow."

"You're not telling me something," Hermione said anxiously, biting her lip, and he stared at her, wondering when she had become so attuned to his every mood. _'Tell me, like this,'_ she sent him through their joined hands.

 _'It's just reminding me of Death Eater recruitment all over again. It's dangerous to be a false recruit, they punish traitors far worse than their enemies, and Max is so young...'_ he broke their connection and gripped his left arm, which had started throbbing again.

Hermione reached over and gently removed his hand. She traced the snakes of his Dark Mark with her thumb, the pain easing slightly, the familiar tingling sensation gradually taking over. "Harry or Ron will be right there with you, nothing should go wrong..."

He shook his head. He knew _something_ was wrong, but he could think of no reasonable explanation...

"How were your parents last night?" he asked, deciding to change the topic.

"Oh! Improving, I think," she said, suddenly retracting her hand and curling up into a ball next to him, staring into the fireplace. "My dad remembered some of the things I told him last week, and my mum started talking about some early childhood memories with me. It seems she can remember things accurately up to when I was about ten years old. But it's still hard to convince her that I'm her daughter, all grown up."

"Are they still passing out when you try to dig up more recent memories?"

She swallowed and nodded, and Draco could tell she was fighting back tears. "The Healers said we might be able to get away with a partial re-Obliviation, just making them forget everything about me after I was ten, say. That would include everything they learned about me being a witch, they'd have to re-learn _everything_... but it might be the best that we can hope for..."

Hermione drew a shaky breath, and Draco put his arms around her, kissing her temple. "So I take it you won't need a sponsor for St. Catterwalls', then. You'll have your parents back in some form or another?"

She looked up at him with a strange sadness in her eyes, then turned back to the fireplace, not saying a word.

"Ah," he whispered, understanding. "St. Mungos' hospital fees."

Tears started streaming silently down Hermione's face, which was all the confirmation he needed. He held her silently for several minutes, fighting an internal war with himself, debating whether to tell her what he had done this week...

"I paid for Amelia Wadsworth's treatment," he whispered into her hair, half-hoping she wouldn't hear him. But her eyes snapped up to his, and he tensed, unsure whether she was about to reproach him or commend him for his actions.

"So that's why Alexa seemed so much happier this week... but Draco, that was risky! What if Giovanni found out..."

"I sent the money to Alexa anonymously," he assured her hurriedly. "I said in my letter that I was an old man living alone, inspired by her story in the _Daily Prophet_. Made sure to say some choice words about her torturer in my letter," he smirked, trying to hide the slight waver in his voice. "Never found it so easy to come up with insults..."

Suddenly Hermione's arms were around his neck, and she was kissing him passionately, relief flooding his system and his Dark Mark pain fading once again into absence. Her tears dried magically under his thumbs as he ran his hands over her face, turning and pushing her back onto the cushions beneath him...

The fireplace roared across the room. "Oi!" yelled Weasley. "We need some help over here!"

* * *

Hermione gasped as Ron and Harry appeared in the fireplace, Harry's face bloodied and bruised, his arm around Ron's supportive shoulders as he helped him limp into the room. A closer look at Ron revealed bruises and gashes across his arms as well, his Auror robes torn and tattered, a nasty red mark across his neck.

Pushing Draco off of her, Hermione rushed over and helped Ron bring Harry to the couch, then grabbed her beaded bag from the coffee stand and rummaged for her Dittany and Restoring Draught.

"Here, for both of you," she said, handing Ron the Restoring Draught, and he sipped it gratefully before tipping some gently into Harry's mouth.

Harry finally winced in pain and groaned - a step up from staring blankly into space, Hermione thought - and Hermione carefully applied Essence of Dittany to the worst of his wounds, the frothing liquid seeping into the gashes and gradually closing them up.

Draco raised his wand hesitantly. "Mind if I...?"

Ron frowned at him suspiciously, but Hermione cut in quickly. "Draco's good at the basic healing spells, he's just going to fix some of your worst injuries, all right, Harry?"

"If you must," muttered Harry. "Not like I could do it myself anyway... _ow_ , Merlin, Malfoy..." Draco smirked and continued his spellwork. "Those greasy Italian gits, took my wand..."

"Your _wand_?" Hermione gasped.

"'Fraid so," sighed Ron, wincing as he collapsed onto the couch next to Harry. "They're brutes, the lot of them, their entire strategy in combat is to get close enough to you so that they can just beat you up the Muggle way. Honestly, if it weren't for some of the self-defense moves Giovanni taught us last fall, Harry and I might not have even escaped..."

"Kreacher!" Harry called, and the house-elf appeared with a _Crack!_ at his side. "Prepare food for six, please." Kreacher bowed and crept off to the kitchens. "Thanks, Malfoy, that's _enough_."

Ron looked up at Draco and frowned at him oddly, making as if to say something and then closing his mouth again. Draco raised an eyebrow and curled his lip in disgust. "Need me to heal you too, Weasley?"

"No thanks, I'm fine," Ron muttered.

"Good." Draco lowered his wand, and Hermione sighed.

"Oh, _honestly_! Let me see your arms, Ron," she insisted, sitting down beside him and pushing up the redhead's sleeves. After a final wary glance in Draco's direction, Ron relaxed slightly and let her tend to his scratches and bruises.

The fireplace roared and Neville and Kingsley stepped through, Neville also looking battered but not as badly as Harry or Ron. "Oh, you're looking better, Harry, that's good," said Neville.

"Anyone manage to get my wand back?" asked Harry hopefully.

Neville shook his head. "Sorry, Harry, the wizard who took it, he just Disapparated, we have no idea where..." Harry lowered his head into his hands, and Hermione sat down next to him on the couch, putting her arms around him. "But we did get the kid back," Neville continued brightly. "You guys drew enough of them out of the room that we were able to get him out of there, without his parents having to pay the ransom."

"They kidnapped another kid?" Hermione gasped.

Neville nodded. "This is the first one in which the parents agreed to let us go in on a rescue mission rather than just paying the ransom to get him back. It's lucky, we learned a lot about their operations, though we didn't manage to round any of them up, and they might be even more prepared next time."

Kingsley cleared his throat. "Mr. Malfoy, any progress?"

"Tomorrow, sir," said Draco. "Tomorrow at the Leaky Cauldron, I believe Giovanni's going to recruit Max Carrow and myself. I want backup, I don't think Giovanni trusts me fully..."

"How would you feel if Hermione was your backup, under Harry's invisibility cloak?"

Hermione felt four pairs of eyes staring at her and stood up nervously. "Me?"

Kingsley nodded grimly. "Our Aurors are all getting injured and overworked, and many of them are abroad at the moment. This should be a simple task. We don't expect Giovanni to bring more than a couple friends to the Leaky Cauldron, correct?"

Draco frowned and reached out to grasp Hermione's hand protectively. "Most likely."

"I will give you a temporary Auror badge, Hermione, and all you have to do is Disarm and either Stun or Bound anyone who admits to their involvement in criminal activities from under the cloak. If anyone questions your actions, show them the badge and then you and Draco can escort them to the Ministry."

"I'll go too," said Ron loudly. "A trained Auror should be there, just in case they try anything. I can Disillusion myself and wait outside the Leaky Cauldron." He looked purposefully at Hermione and she smiled back at him gratefully. She _would_ be glad to have Ron there...

"Are you sure you're up to it?" asked Kingsley, frowning. "I had intended to ask you and Harry to help me start tracking Harry's wand and file reports at the Ministry, since you've both been recently hurt..."

"I'm fine," said Ron stubbornly.

Kingsley hesitated, then nodded. "In that case, Hermione, perhaps we don't need you after all."

Before Hermione could respond, Harry got up slowly from the couch, grimacing as he took a tentative step forward. "They should both go," he said. "If another person had been with Ron and I, we might have gotten away with both of our wands and much fewer injuries." Hermione felt a sudden pang of guilt, feeling somehow that she ought to have been there with them on this last mission... "We should have at least three wizards trained in combat there. Actually, Malfoy, if I could borrow your wand, I could also..."

"Not a chance in Odin's bloody underworld, Potter!" spat Draco. "I'm perfectly well-trained in combat myself, and _I'm_ the one who's going to be actually sitting at the table with them-"

"All right, all right! It's decided, then," Harry interrupted impatiently. "I'll help Kingsley track down my wand while you guys take care of it. But Malfoy," he added, "Hang on tight to your own wand. That's the one that killed Voldemort."

Draco frowned, gripping his wand tightly. "So?"

"So they might try to take it. It's not a coincidence they took Harry's wand," said Neville, and everyone but Harry turned to look at him. "They've moved onto wand-stealing, and they're going for famous wands, wands that have done famous things or have been owned by famous people."

A tense silence fell in the room. Stealing and trading other wizards' wands was the worst kind of theivery imaginable in the wizarding world - taking away a possession that comes to feel like an extension of one's own body... the nakedness and vulnerability of being without it...

"Well," said Hermione finally, attempting to lighten the mood. "That's why we're going to put a stop to it, tomorrow." Neville smiled, and Kingsley gave her a slight bow. Ron nodded and glanced sadly at Hermione and Draco's joined hands before straightening up and composing himself again.

"Tomorrow," agreed Harry, and it was decided.

* * *

Draco spent most of the next day pacing back and forth in his room, going over the plan in his head, rehearsing exactly what he was going to say to Giovanni, trying to clamp down on the cold feeling of dread that was pressing up from his abdomen, threatening to rise like bile to his constricted throat. Even Hermione had not been enough of a distraction last night - nothing could shake the feeling that something was about to go terribly wrong...

_"It's just because it's reminding you of your past," Hermione had assured him as they sat on an oceanside cliff in Peru. "It's natural to feel nervous. You'll get through it."_

She was right, the rational part of his mind scolded him. _Keep it together, Draco._ Just because Giovanni was trying to indimidate him yesterday, just because his heart was still pounding uncontrollably and he didn't know why...

It was an eternity before the Hogwarts bells finally struck seven. Time to meet Max.

He walked shakily down to the music room, pausing to glimpse into Giovanni's office and confirming his suspicions that Giovanni had already left for the Leaky Cauldron. Somehow that knowledge made his stomach clench even tighter...

Finally reaching the music room door and pushing it open, he found Max staring excitedly into the mirror, fixing the collar of his black robes. "We're going to catch them today!" he exclaimed when Draco walked in. "I know it!"

"Let's hope so," he replied, and suddenly the feeling of dread lifted, being replaced by a sense of command, of responsibility. Max needed a leader, and Draco would be one to him, if nothing else. "Now, remember what we agreed on, when we go in..."

They reviewed and rehearsed for the entire hour, not even bothering to touch a musical instrument, Max's blue eyes lighting up enthusiastically at every instruction. The boy had never seen true danger, Draco thought, and the heavy sense of responsibility weighed down further on his shoulders.

Draco and Max made their way towards the Forbidden Forest, and Max yelped as Draco cast a Disillusionment Charm over their heads, simply hoping to avoid the prying eyes of the big, stupid oaf Hagrid, who _somehow_ was still employed at Hogwarts. Pathetic.

"Ready?" he asked Max, who had never Apparated before. "Hold tight to my arm, and just relax into the motion, don't try to fight it."

Max nodded nervously and gripped his arm firmly, but Draco had no doubt that he could handle Side-Along Apparition. Putting a protective hand around Max's free shoulder, he concentrated hard on the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron and spun them into darkness.


	33. Ransom

"It's me," a soft whisper came from behind him as soon as they appeared in the familiar alleyway in London. "I'm under Harry's invisibility cloak."

It always unnerved him, when anyone was under that blasted cloak, but Draco gritted his teeth and nodded ever so slightly to the invisible witch. Glancing down at Max, he was proud to see that Max was staring straight ahead, giving no indication that he was aware of Hermione's presence. Just as they had planned.

A disheveled figure with a scraggly grey beard and tattered robes leaned against the bricks by the window to the pub, taking swigs from an unlabeled bottle. If Draco hadn't been looking for him, he never would have recognized the man as Weasley - he glanced at the bit of wand that was poking out of the man's pocket to double check - he had to admit, the Aurors really did know what they were doing when it came to Concealment and Disguise.

He pulled open the door of the Leaky Cauldron and held it open for Max, who pretended to be distracted by something outside while Hermione slipped in.

Inside the crowded pub, the usual motley assortment of magical folk were bantering and laughed at the bar, telling loud stories around the tables, downing shots of Firewhisky, passing around Butterbeers and Cockroach Clusters. Draco quickly scanned the room and frowned.

"I don't see him, do you?" Max asked loudly over the din, standing on his tiptoes to have a better look.

Draco shook his head, the sinking feeling of dread returning to his stomach, and beckoned for Max to follow him towards an empty table in the back corner.

"Draco! Max!" a familiar voice called out over the rumble of voices and laughter throughout the pub. It was Ted Tonks, sitting at a table by himself, reading the Daily Prophet with a half-empty mug of Butterbeer in front of him. "Giovanni told me you two would be joining us today! Seems you're a couple of his favorite students."

Draco blinked. Ted Tonks, joining _Los Stregones_ members for drinks? It didn't make sense. Either Ted was hiding something, or Giovanni was innocent after all...

Composing himself quickly, he shook Ted's hand as he and Max took two empty seats at the table. "I didn't realize you'd be here, do you usually join his group on Sundays?"

"Have been the last few weeks," Ted replied, "Giovanni said he'd be late today, but he and his friends should be here soon."

"Right, of course," Draco muttered quickly, his mind racing to grapple with the unexpected turn of events. Max was scowling next to him, giving every indication that he was just as bewildered.

The awkward pause that followed was suddenly interrupted by a small black owl that swooped in through the window of the Leaky Cauldron and landed on the table, dropping a letter insistently in front of Ted.

Ted furrowed his brow at the envelope and tore it open carefully with a finger. Draco watched as Ted's eyes widened, then his mouth dropped open slightly, as his expression twisted itself into one of utmost terror.

"They took little Teddy," Ted whispered, the letter slipping out of his slackened grip onto the table. "They... they _took_ him... and I can't - I don't have that much -" he trailed off, shaking his head and staring blankly at the empty space over Draco's forehead.

Draco snatched up the letter and read the fading words, Max squinting over his shoulder with a deepening scowl.

 

> _Dear Friend,_
> 
> _We have possession of your grandson, Teddy Lupin. Do not attempt to track him, or the child will be killed._
> 
> _To retrieve him, bring six thousand Galleons, labeled clearly in Gringotts-approved bags, to the Cottage at the End of the Lane, 17 Mercy Circle, Oakmere. Come alone and come wandless. We will know when you enter, and we will know if you are accompanied by others or a wand. We will know if the money is fake._
> 
> _If you comply, the child will be returned to you safely. Fail to do so, and the boy is ours._
> 
> _You have six hours._
> 
> _Ciao,_
> 
> _Los Stregones Nero del Mago_

Draco paled as the letters faded before his eyes, clearly charmed to be an Untrackable letter. It was also clear that he was meant to see the letter; otherwise it would have faded after Ted read it...

"I don't have that much money," Ted whispered, "We don't, not in our whole family..."

"Yes you do," said Draco quietly, attempting to swallow his panic down his throat. "The Malfoy family has this much money, in total assets, at least... he _knew_. Giovanni must have known, somehow..."

Before Ted had time to respond, Hermione threw off the cloak behind him and he jumped in surprise. "Hermione! Where did you - how...?"

"Never mind how I got here! We need to find out as much as we can in the next six hours, how they took him..." her eyes narrowed, and Draco recognized her look of realization, the one she always wore when she was on to something. "Ted," she said slowly, "Did you ever check Teddy's room for Apparition Holes like I suggested, after enlarging the house?"

Ted paled. "Oh my word, _that's_ how this happened! Andromeda invited some friends over today, she probably magically enlarged the house again. They probably Apparated directly into Teddy's room while he was napping... Honestly Hermione, I forgot that you had even mentioned it, but I should have listened! This is all my fault!" He covered his face with a pair of shaking hands.

Then a recollection hit Draco like a punch to the gut. "No, Ted. It's my fault," he said with sudden certainty. "I replayed that memory in the Pensieve, the memory where she told you about the possibility of an Apparition Hole, because I wanted to relive that Christmas party - and he knew, from that memory, how much I liked Teddy too..."

"You mean Giovanni's been playing us for fools this whole time?" shouted Max, finally grasping what was happening. "Here we thought WE were cornering HIM!"

"Giovanni?" asked Ted, confused. "What does he have to do with this?"

"He's our main suspect," explained Hermione. "We think he's the one that's been stealing things at Hogwarts, and perhaps involved in the kidnappings too, and we had come here to catch him, thinking he was going to try to recruit Draco and Max into criminal activity... Oh, never mind, it's a long story!" she exclaimed at Ted's shocked expression. "Ron's waiting outside, let's go. We need to come up with a plan to rescue Teddy!"

"There's nothing to _plan_ , Hermione!" shouted Draco, the anxiety threatening to overwhelm him. "I'm going to go get the money from my vault, and then Ted's going to give it to them. And that's final."

"It is most certainly _not_ final, Draco!" she cried, and she cast a nonverbal _Muffliato_ charm around the table as a few curious glances started to shift in their direction.

"Yeah? What would you have us do? Are you really stupid enough to try to track him, when the letter clearly said he'd be killed if we did?" Draco saw the door open out of the corner of his eye, Weasley's disguised form walking through.

"If we just give in, you think they'll just stop?" Hermione hissed. "That they'll be perfectly satisfied with their six thousand galleons, and not go on to kidnap another kid, and another? Or do you _always_ submit to criminals and Dark wizards to save your own kin, without caring about the consequences to anyone else?"

Draco felt his blood boil over, but at least now the fear and horror was being replaced by anger, a much more useful and controllable emotion. "Teddy is one year old! His safety is not something to bargain with!"

"Says the man who roped a twelve year old into getting himself recruited into a criminal society!" she shouted back, gesturing to Max, who was sneering down at the table, seemingly deep in thought. "I would _never_ do anything to compromise Teddy's safety! But the letter said we have six hours, and by Godric we should use them!"

"Hermione's right," said a gruff voice behind them that sounded vaguely familiar, and Weasley pointed his wand at himself, gradually straightening his disheveled appearence and changing his voice back to normal. "The Aurors can use every hour to our advantage, and it's huge that we're here for the start of the time block. Usually parents just give in immediately before they even contact us to report the kidnapping."

"Excuse me," cut in Ted, "But I believe, as Teddy's primary guardian, this should be my decision to make, and Andromeda's. I need to go see Andromeda first, and I can check on Teddy's room just in case they're bluffing. Draco, we'll probably need to take you up on your offer and borrow the money, if you would be so kind as to retrieve it from your vault..."

"Wait," said Draco, holding up a hand, his heart pounding in horror again as he remembered the status of the Malfoy funds. "I just realized. It said six thousand Galleons, right? I don't think I have that much in gold at the moment. In assets and properties and investments, certainly I have far more than that. But it would take too much time to sell things and withdraw investments..."

He looked at Hermione helplessly, willing her to understand that the reason he didn't have enough gold in his vault was that he had just given a large sum of it towards the treatment of Amelia Wadsworth.

"How much do you have in there?" she asked, returning his look knowingly, and reaching to grasp his hand.

"At least four thousand, I think. I'll have to go and check."

"Andromeda and I have about a thousand saved up..."

"Harry, we'll call on Harry for the rest," said Ron confidently. "That's the first order of business then, let's gather the money and then think about how we can trace the kidnappers _after_ we get Teddy back safely. After you two make your visits to Gringotts and your place, meet us at Grimmauld Place. We'll get Harry and alert the Auror office and then we'll decide what to do."

"Sounds like a plan," said Ted, taking a deep breath. Hermione nodded and gripped Draco's hand tightly.

 _'Fine, I'll go along with this idiotic planning as long as we get Teddy before putting any plan into action,'_ he sent her quickly, not wanting to delay things further by arguing with Weasley.

 _'We'd never put him in danger, none of us. The thing is, he already is in danger, and we need to do our best to make sure that it never happens again.'_ Hermione pulled him into a lingering kiss, the first that they had ever shared publicly, and Draco nearly swore at himself for how easily all his righteous anger and fear melted away at the gesture.

"Yuck," said Max, crossing his arms and squeezing his eyes shut.

"I'll be with you soon," Draco said to Hermione, ignoring the open stares from several nearby tables at the sight of a Death Eater together with one of the saviours of the Wizarding world.

Hermione nodded and left with Ron. Ted stood up and took a deep breath, following them out.

"You're with me." Max nodded in agreement and fell into step behind Draco as he strode over to tap on the brick wall that was the entrance to Diagon Alley.

* * *

When Draco arrived with Max at Grimmauld Place, a little over four thousand Galleons in hand, he was shocked to see a large crowd of people sitting around the sofas in the living room, or cross-legged on the floor, or leaning against door frames, counting out gold in their hands. With a quick scan, he recognized Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, Ginny and George Weasley, Cho Chang, Hannah Abbott, one of the Creevey brothers, Dean Thomas, Preston Logan...

The fireplace roared and a black cat trotted out, Transfiguring into Professor McGonagall. Behind her appeared Kingsley and two other Aurors that Draco didn't recognize. A few moments later Mr. and Mrs. Weasley stepped over the threshold behind him, and he pulled Max out of their way instinctively. He was thankful that no one seemed to be paying them any attention.

If he had felt out of place at Ted's Christmas party, it was nothing compared to this.

Neville stood up and took a bagfull of Galleons towards the kitchen, from which Hermione poked her head around the door. "Another hundred here," he said cheerfully, as if he had just finished repotting a Rumblepod Root.

"Thanks Neville, Ron's sorting the piles, if you could put them... oh! Draco! There you are!" she pushed past Neville and hurried across the room, stepping awkwardly around the many obstacles of witches and wizards and piles of gold that littered the floor.

"Four thousand three hundred and fifty six," Max told her proudly, handing two of the bags to her. "The goblins weighed them."

Hermione beamed. "That's wonderful, thank you for helping! If you two can help people count and sort..."

"Hermione, what's going on, where's Potter?" Draco asked, finally finding his voice again.

"He lost his wand, remember? And you need it for identification at Gringotts these days, so Harry couldn't access his vault. He could register a new wand, but it would take a day to process. So we called on the D.A. to scrape together the last of the money - Dumbledore's Army, that is, with these." She took out her charmed Galleon that she had showed him during one of their many Saturday work sessions. "Fastest way to contact anyone, and even more reliable than a Patronus or an owl."

He looked at the Galleon thoughtfully. "You know, if you could put a Protean charm on a Galleon, I wonder what else you could do to them. Say, to six thousand of them."

Hermione's eyes snapped to his, and though they were not touching, he could practically hear her appreciation that he was helping think of ways to catch the kidnappers.

"Right! Like a hex, that activates when you touch them! But we'd have to be careful, the note said that they can detect wands, that's probably with a Magical Detection Ward on the entire cottage." She frowned in thought. "We'd need something that doesn't leave a magical trace until the moment it's activated... and what if they touch the Galleons in the room? No, that wouldn't work..."

Just then the fireplace roared again and a goblin stepped through... perhaps the same one that was at Ted's Christmas party? Griphook, was it? They all looked the same to Draco...

With a final roar and a burst of green flames, Harry Potter materalized in the fireplace, looking still battered and bruised from the day before but a firey determination lighting up his green eyes. Draco noticed the atmosphere in the room shift slightly at his entrance, shoulders turning subtly to face him, quick reverent glances followed by uncertain pauses as if waiting for directions. He was clearly the unspoken leader of this group, even if the D.A. was no longer an official organization, even if Potter was only a junior temp in the Auror office.

He shuddered as he realized that the Boy who Lived commanded the same sort of attention as the Dark Lord had done in his circles. _But then, Potter doesn't strike random people dead for disobeying him_ , he reminded himself.

"All right, everyone!" Potter clapped his hands. "How's the count going? Remember I'll pay you all back..."

"Don't be stupid, Harry," said George. "Weasley's Wizard Wheezes has more than enough, this is just what we had at the register today." He held up a bag of several hundred Galleons. "We're happy to help." There were nods of agreement all around.

Finally Ted and Andromeda appeared at the doorway of the already-overcrowded room, carrying bags of money themselves. "Oh, thank you, dears, for being here, we'll pay you all back in the end..." gushed Andromeda tearily.

"We just told off Harry for the same silly notion," said Mrs. Weasley, waving a hand dismissively. "Teddy is beloved to all of us."

"Merlin, I should hold Christmas parties more often," muttered Ted, and cracked a smile. "Harry, Ron, Hermione," he nodded to the three of them in turn as Ron appeared in the doorway from the kitchen. "We've decided to agree to delay the trip to that cottage for a few hours to see if we can come up with a better plan. But I have veto power if I think my grandson is in danger."

"Of course," said Potter. "Excellent. First order of buisness. What's our count?"

"It looks like we have plenty now," said Ron, "Eight hundred seventy in the kitchen, and with Malfoy's and Ted's we should be good." He lazily Summoned the bags of gold from Hermione's, Draco's, and Ted's hands with a flick of his wand, levitating them into the kitchen and setting them down on the table with a clatter.

"All right, good." Potter nodded approvingly. "Thanks everyone for digging into your pockets today. With luck, we won't have to do this again after tonight. Kingsley, have you sent anyone to evaluate the Cottage, and Teddy's room?"

"Hestia Jones and Dedalus Diggle are on the cottage, examining it from afar so as not to activate the detection charms," replied Kingsley in his deep, booming voice. "The extra time may be exactly what they need, so thanks, Ted, for coming to us before running the money to them.

"As for Teddy's bedroom, Hiddleston and Bergen, I'd like you two to go investigate." The two Aurors nodded. "Andromeda, can you lead them to your home and let them in? We need Ted for the transaction. Return here to report anything that you three find."

Andromeda nodded and swallowed, kissing Ted quickly on the cheek before wordlessly beckoning to the Aurors and leading them to vanish into the fireplace.

After several more minutes of everyone working together to thoroughly count and sort the Galleons, the goblin transferred them into six thousand-Galleon Gringotts bags and then set them aside, drumming his long-fingered hands on the table. Everyone gathered around the kitchen table, and Potter was the first to speak.

"All right, as you all know, we have a dangerous situation on our hands. Teddy's safety is first priority, and we now have the gold to pay the ransom thanks to everyone here. We have a few hours to come up with ways to make use of this situation to gather information and possibly track down some of the criminals. Any ideas? Spit them all out, no matter how stupid."

"Wait," said Ted, "First we should draw up what was on the letter I got, so we know what they expect." Ted and Draco together recalled exactly what the letter had said, and Hermione copied it down onto a sheet of parchment, then enlarged the parchment and stuck it to the wall where everyone could see. Then she drew up another sheet of parchment

" _Don't try to track him or he'll be killed,_ " muttered Dean, "Well, that rules out a lot of possibilities."

"Right, trying to find Teddy without showing up to the cottage with the ransom is out of the question," agreed Kingsley. "But there may be a split second after Ted gets Teddy and before they disappear with the money in which we can prevent them from disappearing. Put up our own anti-Apparition wards on the cottage, perhaps?"

"They might be able to detect that," said Arthur Weasley. "We can't risk anything they can possibly detect."

"All right then, let's think, what kind of magic isn't detectable? Or what non-magical traps might we be able to set?" asked Potter, and Draco realized for the first time that Potter's stupid questions that he always asked might actually serve to spur on thought in the right direction - maybe they were borne out of leadership, rather than ignorance?

A few suggestions were thrown around the room. Neville suggested magical plants, but getting them into the cottage in the first place would be an issue. Luna rambled on about undetectable magical creatures, earning her befuddled stares until Ron Weasley told her to shut it. Arthur talked about the possibility of using Muggle technology, but wasn't sure what to do with any of it.

"Draco was thinking we should just charm the Galleons themselves, to explode in their faces or something!" said Max at one point, and Draco frowned at him.

"I did _not_ say explode in their faces..."

"That's a good idea," interrupted Preston, looking at Hermione rather than Max. "Like you did with the D.A. galleon that Dean showed me. That's how you called all of us. Maybe you can call the criminals, but in a way that they can't refuse?"

Ginny frowned. "Put a Protean charm on all of them and then send our own ransom note? If only we could steal something from _them_..."

Ron shook his head. "Harry and I looked into Giovanni's office, he has nothing worth stealing there, and we don't know where any of their other hideouts are. Hell, we don't even know what any of their bloody _names_ are..."

"Not a ransom note, then," said Harry. "And not the Protean charm. But it's a good idea. How could we make the Galleons capture them?"

Suddenly it was clear. Hermione gasped next to him and Draco knew, after all their study sessions and practice with object enchantments this year, he knew that she was thinking the same thing. He gripped Hermione's hand under the table and they sent each other the same thought simultaneously.

_'Portkeys.'_


	34. Battle Stations

Two hours and forty-six minutes left.

Hermione checked her watch anxiously. Teddy had been missing for over three hours. Andromeda was now pacing about the room, her robes swishing behind her at each turn. Griphook the goblin speaking slowly to the room about the difficulties in It was a good thing, Hermione thought, that Griphook the goblin had come to think of Ted Tonks as a friend, or in his words, as "practically a goblin in a wizard body". Without Griphook's expert manipulation of the Gringotts protections on the gold, it would have been impossible to turn the Galleons into functioning portkeys.

Two hours and twenty minutes left.

Professor McGonagall and Arthur Weasley were most practiced at the creation of Portkeys, and they quickly taught everyone else the simple sequence of spells to enchant the objects. At Harry's suggestion, they would set the fixed transportation point be the location in which their ownership was last transferred. If all went well, this would be the cottage at 17 Mercy Circle, Oakmere....

Two hours and seven minutes left.

Hermione was huddled in a corner of the kitchen with Harry, Ron, Kingsley, Draco, Neville, Dedalus Diggle, and Hestia Jones, discussing strategies for capturing the Italians if the Portkeys did bring them back. Glancing around the room, her heart gave a little leap at the sight of everyone else focused down at Galleon after Galleon, muttering incantations in rote repetition, working furiously against the clock. Max and Preston were, amazingly, working side by side, seemingly engaged in a competition to see who could make the most Portkeys. McGonagall was working efficiently on her own, faster than anyone else. Kreacher was directing Blinky, Griphook checking each Galleon for traces of the magic.

One hour and fifty-two minutes left.

"So, to go over the plan one more time," said Harry. "Ted will go in alone and wandless - I'll have his wand - he'll give them the bags of money, which Griphook says should have no detectable trace of magic until they actually activate fifteen minutes after the transaction."

He paused, looking at Dedalus and Hestia questioningly, and they nodded their heads in agreement. "The cottage doesn't have charms on it that can detect portkey magic."

"Right. So," continued Harry, "He'll get Teddy out of there, walk to the Apparition point and take him directly home, where Andromeda will be keeping watch on their house. Meanwhile, all of us along with Hiddleston and Bergen will be waiting in the trees, Disillusioned, just outside the boundaries of the cottage property. Based on what happened last time, the Italians will also have some people there, waiting to ambush us for our wands. But we'll be expecting them this time too."

He looked around at each of them in turn. "It's everyone's responsibility to cover for each other and get at least one of us into the cottage to apprehend anyone who is Portkeyed back to us. Then we keep them there, Disarm them, Stun them, do whatever you have to do to round them up so that we can take them to the Ministry for questioning."

Everyone listened quietly as Ron and Neville detailed the sort of fight tactics that the _Los Stregones_ members used on them during their last battle.

One hour and forty minutes left.

Finally Harry clapped his hands. "Any questions?"

"Yes, actually," said Ron, looking slightly embarrased. "Malfoy isn't a trained Auror, perhaps he shouldn't come on the mission."

"We've already discussed this, Ronald," said Hermione. "I'm not a trained Auror either, but I'm perfectly well trained in combat. And we need the extra hands."

Draco was twirling his wand around in his hands, his eyes unfocused, seemingly not listening even as Harry said, "He can come, it's his cousin. You know how that is." Finally Draco looked up.

"I have a question."

"By all means."

"My question is for Mr. Shacklebolt." He turned to Kingsley and stilled his wand with a firm catch. "If I may suggest, the reason that _Los Stregones_ has so far been able to overpower you is that it they are using Dark Magic of a different kind to get close to you and then let their Muggle fighting abilities take over. You're used to fighting Death Eater magic, that's what you've been training for the last years, but this sounds different..."

"And what is your question?" asked Kingsley impatiently, staring him down.

"My question is whether it would be permissible," he drawled, "in the eyes of the Ministry, if I were to use Dark Magic of my own in order to apprehend the criminals. Powers that the Dark Lord gave me, that weren't very useful against the Order, but which would be very useful against _Los Stregones_ , particularly if it comes to hand-to-hand combat."

There was an uncomfortable silence, punctured only by the ticking of the clock on the wall and the clinking of Galleons being charmed into Portkeys. "I would see to it that an exception is granted in any resulting legal proceedings, as long as said magic brings no harm to any of us," said Kingsley after a long moment. Draco gave a slight nod and resumed tossing his wand from hand to hand.

Another pause. "It's decided then," said Harry finally. "Let's finish these Portkeys and go."

* * *

Draco crouched down, Disillusioned, in the bushes at his designated post. It was dark, except for the eerie light of the nearly full moon, at the cottage at the end of the lane. He forced himself not to jump at every shifting shadow, but he couldn't help but glance behind him every time the bushes rustled in the wind.

_Hang on tight to your own wand. That's the one that killed Voldemort._ Potter's words flitted through his mind, and he clutched his wand tighter, trying to calm his racing heart.

He watched as the dark outline of Ted Tonks approached the cottage down the lane, wheeling the six heavy bags of a thousand charmed Galleons each in a wheelbarrow, as he couldn't use magic to levitate them. Ted pushed open the door of the cottage and heaved the bags into the house one by one, closing the door behind him...

* * *

"I can't believe they left us here!" exclaimed Max Carrow. " _'You're not trained in combat, you're too young, we'll be fine, don't you worry,'_ that's just what everyone said to me before the Battle of Hogwarts! And look how fine they were!"

"I know," complained Preston Logan, who also was left to wait helplessly at Grimmauld Place. The adults were all either actively apprehending criminals in the cottage area or at Andromeda's place, helping prepare it and fortify it against further attacks or break-ins. "They _always_ do this. As if we don't know any magic! We just made more Portkeys than any of them! Well, maybe except McGonagall..."

"I hate that woman. Don't speak her name." Max got up and paced around the room. "And I hate Draco for making me stay here! He told me I was in on this! Something could happen to him and I wouldn't be there to help! AGAIN!" He aimed his wand randomly at a wall and sent a forceful spell into it, punching a hard dent into the bricks.

Preston frowned at the littered mess of leftover Galleons, and suddenly grinned a very Gryffindor grin. "You know what I'm thinking, Max? I think it's time we break the rules."

"What rules?"

"You know, the rule that we have to stay here while the adults take care of the hard stuff. Let's go join them."

"But how are we going to get there? They all just Apparated to Oakmere, it would take us forever on broomstick..."

Preston grinned wider. "Did it, or did it not escape your notice that both of us are now very good at making Portkeys?"


	35. Los Stregones Nero del Mago

Draco let out a silent breath when Ted emerged from the cottage with little Teddy wailing in his arms. "Don't worry, Teddy dear," he was whispering, trying to comfort the child. "We'll change your nappy and feed you first thing, that's it, no need to make your teeth all sharp now, everything will be ok..."

Ted walked past him, and he could barely see Ted mounting an extra-wide broom with a charmed, weather-stabilized child carrier attached securely to the front, strapping Teddy into the seat and taking off into the night. It was always a risk to Apparate a child that young over long distances, and Draco was glad to see that Ted seemed to be an excellent flyer.

He crept, still Disillusioned, from his hiding place, trying to time his steps with the rustling of the bushes in the wind. He knew that the others should be trying to approach the cottage too, but he couldn't tell which shadows were people and which were a trick of his imagination...

"Argh!" Suddenly Ron Weasley appeared in front of him on the lane, his Disillusionment charm removed, an invisible force seemingly forcing him to the ground and choking him as he kicked upwards and struggled.

" _Hominem Revelio Totalem!_ " Hermione cried, and suddenly everyone was visible except for Potter, who was still under his cloak; a short Italian wizard dressed head to toe in tight-fitting, flexible black clothing was strangling Ron, holding him to the ground and grasping for Ron's wand.

" _Stupefy!_ " Kingsley's well-aimed spell knocked out the wizard and Ron wrenched his wand back, gasping. Suddenly black-clad fighters were leaping out of the bushes from all directions, surrounding them, calling out commands to each other in rapid Italian. Seven, eight, no, maybe twelve of them...

 _Don't let them get close to you._ Draco joined the Aurors in casting repelling jinx after repelling jinx, shield after shield as they all backed towards the cottage. The Black Magic Sorcerers rolled and ducked, some of them being flung backwards only to catch themselves in a graceful backflip and run towards the Aurors once again. They cast no offensive spells, focusing solely on getting close to their opponents, only using their wands to cast strong Shield charms around themselves to block any stunning spells the Aurors unsuccessfully tried to send their way.

Neville was the first to be tackled to the ground. Hiddleston Stunned the offending wizard immediately, but it was too late - Neville had been knocked unconscious the moment his head had hit the pavement. A sacrifice, Draco realized, a pawn for a pawn - knock out one of us, and we can knock out one of them.

But there are more of them.

 _A good old Avada Kedavra would teach them a lesson_ , thought Draco bitterly, but knew as well as anyone else did that no one would be casting Unforgivables tonight. It was thieves versus Aurors, crime versus law, not dark versus light. Justice, not war.

Draco found himself backed up against the front window of the cottage with two black-clad ninja-like wizards running at him full-speed. He Repelled one of them fifty feet back, and just as the other released his Shield charm to tackle him, a _Stupefy_ came seemingly out of thin air to knock the wizard to the ground two inches from his feet. Potter had saved his skin, once again. He really need to stop letting him do that.

The first wizard had gotten up and was running at him again, and Draco didn't hesitate. " _Reducto!_ " He blasted the window apart behind him, the glass falling into the cabin, and he turned to leap into the room, stepping over the glass quickly and turning behind him. " _Reparo!_ " The glass pieces rose back into place, the window re-forming just as the Italian reached it, slamming into the glass and falling backwards. He heard a muffled " _Stupefy_ " from outside and the wizard was knocked unconscious.

Draco ducked beneath the window, lifted it open just a crack at the bottom, and peeked out towards the battle, sending quick jinxes to help whenever he could. Five black-clad wizards were now either tied up or laying motionless on the ground, and everyone was still fighting except Neville, who had been Levitated into the safety of the bushes, probably by Potter's invisible hand.

The door to the cottage opened and Draco immediately turned his wand towards it, but no one walked through, and the door seemed to close by itself.

"Potter?"

"It's me," said Potter invisibly. "The Portkeys should be taking them here any second..."

"Come help me at the window." He felt a presence crouch down beside him, and to his horror, in the seconds that he was looking away, one of the _Los Stregones_ wizards had tackled Hermione to the ground, wrenching her wand from her hand and raising it to cast a shield charm, no doubt to run away with the wand...

" _Stupefy!_ " Draco yelled, as Potter cried " _Expelliarmus!_ " Hermione's wand flew towards them and smacked against the window as her attacker fell to the ground.

" _Accio,_ " muttered Potter, and the wand levitated in through the crack in the window, then vanished out of sight as Potter caught it and pocketed the wand. Hermione lie limply on the ground, her arm twisted into a sickeningly unnatural position, blood pooling under her elbow. Draco stood up immediately and felt Potter do the same, ready to run to her, forgetting completely about their mission...

_Thwooop!_

The familiar sound of a Portkey's arrival swooshed behind them and Draco turned to see two short, muscular wizards sprawled atop the six bags of Galleons in the opposite corner of the room, glowing coins fading in their hands. As they turned around and whipped out their wands, Draco's stomach dropped as he saw who the shorter one was, the flecks of grey in his bearded, smiling face...

" _Stupefy!_ " he and Potter shouted simultaneously, but both of the wizards rolled elegantly to dodge the spells and stood to face them, casting _Protego_ charms about themselves.

"Dray-co, my man!"

"Shut up, Giovanni. You're under arrest."

"I think-a not. Port-a keys, eh? Not-a bad, not-a bad idea..."

" _You were given a second chance!_ " Draco found himself shouting, blood rushing to his head with a fury that he couldn't explain. "They let you out of Azkaban to give you a second chance to set your life straight, and what do you do? Kidnap children, and steal from them? You complete and utter moron! They're not going to give you a third!"

Potter was sending spell after spell that simply bounced off of their shield charms. Some of his spells aimed at objects near them, trying to hit them with physical blasts, but they dodged and repelled them easily.

"They won't have to, you see, my man, Dray-co." Giovanni was still smiling jovially, and started strolling gradually towards Draco. "I'm-a going to get away with this-a money, pay off my debts, and then-a change my identity back in-a Italy, live a quiet, happy life!"

"Stay back!" Draco warned fruitlessly, raising his wand threateningly, then frowned as he saw an extra stick of wood poking out of Giovanni's pocket. He'd recognize that wand anywhere, given how many times he dueled against it....

Draco and Potter were being slowly backed into a corner, and he wished that Potter wasn't so infuriatingly stupid - or at least impulsive - as to keep giving his location away by casting spells. There were bangs and cries coming from outside the cottage, and he wished he could see what was happening...

"How did you know Max and I weren't trying to be recruited?" Draco asked, desperately hoping to buy more time for others to enter the cottage.

"Ah, well, here's-a one last lesson for you, Dray-co, my man." Giovanni was nearby, now, and Draco prepared himself for the inevitable attack.

"Keep a closer eye on your-a house-elves."

The next thing he knew, Giovanni and his partner released their shield charms and leapt towards them. Draco knew enough of Giovanni's fighting techniques to avoid his first punch, but soon the men were wrestling on the floor of the cottage, kicking and hitting each other, fighting for wand control. Harry was invisibly fighting the other wizard, managing to keep up due to his magical advantage, but only barely.

Draco gasped for air as he found himself pinned to the ground, Giovanni pressing one strong hand against his esophagus and the other pinning his wand wrist to the ground. He was gradually losing consciousness, and he thought fuzzily back to that day in the Ministry cell when his father was similarly winning the fight... if only Mother were here...

 _If only Mother were here? Are you a Wizard or not?_ Hermione's voice sounded in his head, and while he wasn't aware enough to understand whether it was real, it jolted him into action, the only spell he could perform from this position.

' _Extensio Momentus!_ ' he thought, jerking his wand around in a circle against Giovanni's tight hold on his wrist, and time slowed to nearly a standstill. It was slowed for Giovanni, too, he knew, because they were in contact - there was nothing he could do about that - but for all that Giovanni was physically stronger than him, Draco knew that he had the mental advantage. He could _think_ faster, and under this spell, that was what mattered.

He glanced around slowly, at Potter's wand in Giovanni's lower pocket that was too far out of reach, at the window, where spells were being fired through the air in slow motion... and who was that small boy? No, it couldn't be... He glanced upwards, behind his head, to the six heavy bags of Galleons on the far wall, that his wand was pointing straight at...

Could it be that easy? Swish and flick, probably spraining his own wrist in the process of doing it much faster than normal time, but it would be worth it, to get this sad Italian excuse for a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher off his neck.

' _Wingardium Leviosa!_ ' Draco thought, and moved his wrist in a minimal swish-and-flick motion that he hoped would suffice. The normal-speed motion in slowed time hurt like hell, as he had expected, and yet one of the bags of gold was now floating over towards Giovanni's head. It was floating slowly, but in real time that meant it was speeding like a bludger, and he saw Giovanni's eyes widen slowly as he realized that he had two choices: either let the bag of gold hit his head at that speed, certainly knocking him out if not killing him, or let go of Draco for a moment to avoid the bag of gold.

Draco twisted his mouth gradually into a smirk as Giovanni chose the latter, releasing his hold slowly and rolling away, which accomplished his second aim - have time still slowed for himself but not for his opponent. The advantage was enough for Draco to take a slow intake of breath, reach out as Giovanni rolled in slow motion, and grasp the tip of Potter's stolen wand from the Italian wizard's robes with his left hand.

" _IIIInnnnncaaaarrrrrrccceeeeerrrrrroooooouuuuus...._ " he incanted in slowed time, and over the course of what felt like several minutes, thick ropes sprung from Potter's wand in Draco's left hand and bound themselves to Giovanni, wrapping him like a straightjacket and holding him in place. Draco's right hand, his wand hand, was most certainly sprained, if not broken, and yet the Wingardium Leviosa was still holding on the bag of gold. He put a last great effort into sending it towards Potter's attacker, who was straddling his invisible body and raising his arm to throw another punch at Potter's now-visible head.

The gold knocked hard into the wizard's shoulder, and finally Draco couldn't hold the spells any longer. _'Resumen,'_ he thought, and time returned to normal, Potter groaning and getting up slowly, Binding the wizard who had attacked him. Draco's right wrist was red and swollen, and he tossed Potter's wand to him, switching his own wand into his left hand.

"You were right," he hissed down at Giovanni's sweaty face, levitating the bag of gold once again. "I guess money _is_ power." Then he dropped the bag down hard onto the Italian wizard's shins.

Giovanni Bellavita just laughed.


	36. The Casualty

Harry clutched his newly re-broken nose - how many times could a nose be broken and put back together, anyway? - and stumbled out of the cottage to help the others, Malfoy at his heels.

The fight was winding down. Kingsley and Hestia were binding several of the black-clad wizards in ropes as Hiddleston and Bergen appeared to be winning a duel over the last criminal who was struggling desperately to escape. Neville was groaning and clutching his head as Dedalus Diggle waved a healing spell over his injuries.

Ron and Hermione were huddled together on the ground, murmering words of comfort to each other, and Harry knew instantly that Ron had dropped to Hermione's side mid-battle, leaving him vulnerable to an attack. He walked over to them, crouched down, and handed Hermione her wand.

"Oh, thanks Harry," she muttered hazily. "The cottage - how was - were they - ?"

Harry smoothed back her dirty, bloodied hair as Ron held his arms tight around her shoulders. "We took care of them, rounded up Giovanni himself. Is everyone all ri-"

Suddenly a scream of pure anguish split the night air, and Harry looked around wildly to see that the noise came from Malfoy. For a crazy, fleeting moment, he thought that he was reacting to Hermione's wounds, but then glanced behind to where Malfoy's horrified, wide-eyed gaze stared, where he started running towards full speed...

Two small boys were on the ground, in the shadows of the bushes, one lying motionless and the other crying and prodding the boy on the ground, babbling incoherent pleas for him to wake up.

Preston Logan and Max Carrow had joined the fight.

"Didn't-a mean to hurt those boys," one tied-up Stregones member said miserably nearby in broken English. "Never would-a harm them..."

"No, you'd only kidnap them, you bloody git," snapped Ron, hitting the Italian with a forceful Silencing spell.

"Max... _Logan_! What happened!" Malfoy was yelling now, dropped to his knees, working furious healing spells on the motionless dark-haired boy.

"We j-just w-wanted to help," hiccuped Preston between sobs. "Made an-another portkey..."

"You idiot! It was _your_ idea, wasn't it, you bloody stupid Gryffindor! You pushed Max into this and now you've gotten him... he's not... SOMEONE HELP US OVER HERE!"

Harry ran over to them and pulled Preston aside. "You said you made a Portkey between here and Grimmauld place. Where is it, and when will it go back?"

Preston limped over to fetch what looked like a dinner plate from Grimmauld Place lodged into the bushes. "It'll leave soon, I think. What time is it?"

Malfoy glanced up at the sky, then focused back on Max, feeling for his pulse, tracing his wand across a bloody wound across the boy's stomach. "A bit past midnight," he said thickly, and Harry was impressed that he could tell that just from the positions of the moon and the stars.

Preston nodded and started crying again. "It'll leave s-soon."

Harry took the plate and thrust it into Malfoy's face. He couldn't believe that the young Slytherin boy was... not alive, the very idea was impossible, surely... "Take this back, with Max, then Floo him directly to St. Mungos'. We'll meet you back at Grimmauld place." He hesitated, then clapped a hand to the blonde man's shoulder. "Nice work today, and, er, thanks, for getting my wand back-"

"Shut up, Potter," hissed Malfoy through gritted teeth, wrenching the Portkey out of Harry's grip and touching it gently to Max Carrow's limp hand.

The dinner plate glowed blue, and the pair vanished out of sight.

* * *

After sending the captured Los Stregones wizards to the Ministry holding cells and filing a quick report, Harry finally Flooed back to Grimmauld Place from his temporary Auror office, several recovered bags of Galleons in his hands. Through the flames, he could see Ron and Hermione on the sofa, looking much better than they had after the fight. Luna was nursing Neville back to health in the kitchen. Griphook was sulking in a corner, waiting to restore the portkey-Galleons to their normal state...

A familiar pair of slender arms threw themselves around him, and he dropped the Galleons on the floor with a loud _clank_ as Ginny's warm lips pressed to his.

She didn't need to say anything; he knew from the way she kissed him. Teddy Lupin was safe.

"Ginny," he breathed with relief, and hugged her tightly, looking over at Ron and Hermione. "It's over. We got them." She was smiling ear to ear in his arms. "And I'm quitting."

"You're _what!?_ " exclaimed Ron, wincing as he stood from the sofa. Ginny threw her brother a look. That was one thing that Harry loved about her; she never questioned his decisions, not when they were the right ones, not when he was absolutely sure...

"The Italian Sorcerers' Society was the one that was causing the most trouble here in the aftermath of the war, Ron," said Harry, releasing Ginny slightly so that his arm was loosely draped around her. "All the remaining Death Eaters are rounded up. I've got my wand back, no one's in immediate danger..."

"So what, you're saying we don't need you anymore, at the Auror office?" said Ron, clearly flabbergasted.

"He's right," groaned Neville raspily from the kitchen. "Things should be quieter now, and I'm thinking of quitting too. I've always wanted to set up my own magical garden..." Luna beamed and patted him fondly on the head. Ron gaped at them, swiveling his gaze between Neville and Harry.

"I'm sick of the fighting, Ron, I was done with it the moment Voldemort died, really." Harry led Ginny over to the space on the sofa that Ron had vacated, plopping them down with Hermione to his right. He instinctively reached out to grasp Hermione's hand, relieved that nothing worse had happened to her.

"And I can't keep watching people get hurt. We don't even know if Max is..." he couldn't bring himself to say it. "Look, Ron, there will always be more to do. But it's someone else's turn."

Hermione put her other hand over Harry's, smiling softly. "That's a good idea, Harry, especially seeing as Hogwarts now needs a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher for the rest of the year."

"Oh, er - right!" said Harry, straightening at the realization. Hermione chuckled next to him as he put two and two together. "Giovanni's going to need a substitute, isn't he?"

Ginny giggled and snuggled closer to Harry. Soon he found himself laughing at the irony of the situation, Neville and Luna smiling from the next room and Hermione laughing along with him, her bruises fading as various magical healing lotions set into her skin.

Finally the laughter died down. Ron, who had been frowning the whole time, shook his head. "I - I'm staying," he said finally, as though it cost him great effort to speak the words. "I'm going to stay on as an Auror, for as long as they need me." He looked uncertainly at Harry, who recognized the reluctance in Ron to leave his own side.

Harry nodded up at his best friend. "Good luck then, mate."

Ron grinned back, standing slightly taller, looking more like the elder Weasley brothers than ever.

"Well, it's about time you do something useful with your li-" started Ginny. Just then the fireplace roared and Draco Malfoy stormed into the room.

Hermione stood up anxiously, and Malfoy's features softened slightly at the sight of her, his scowl turning to a concentrated frown as he wordlessly took her hands in his and studied her remaining bruises. He took out his wand and waved it carefully over the remaining cuts and scrapes, never letting go of Hermione's right hand in his left, his steel grey eyes boring into hers.

Harry felt as if he were witnessing something very private, and instinctively shifted his gaze towards Griphook, who was emptying the bags of Galleons and running his bony hands over them, his black eyes glinting with gold.

"I think they're communicating, telepathically, Hermione and Draco," Luna said dreamily to Neville from the kitchen. "Through their hands. Would you like to try it some day?"

Suddenly Malfoy snatched his hand away from Hermione and turned away to face the wall.

"No, look, I didn't mean - it wasn't your fault - you couldn't have known -" cried Hermione suddenly, reaching her now empty hand out helplessly towards the Slytherin.

"Don't take back what you meant," he bit back, staring into the small mirror on Harry's wall.

Hermione sighed. "Draco, just tell me. How is he?"

The mirror shattered into a thousand pieces, and Malfoy suddenly grasped at his own face, gasping. "Merlin, we might have spent a bit too much time in the mirror world... that actually sort of hurt..."

" _Scourgify,_ " muttered Hermione, pointing her wand to clear up the now useless fragments of glass on the floor. Then she walked up to Malfoy and grabbed him by the elbow. "How _is_ he?"

"I don't know!" cried Malfoy, his voice suddenly rising several octaves. "They don't know - yet - if he, if he'll - if he'll make it!" Tears came to his eyes and he blinked them away furiously.

"It's not your fault, Malfoy," said Harry, and everyone turned to look at him in surprise. "You said Max was angry about being left out of his parents' fight in the Battle of Hogwarts, right? We both know how that feels, he would have gotten himself into trouble eventually anyway."

Malfoy put his head in his hands and slumped against the wall, Hermione's hand still on his elbow. "How did Giovanni know we were bluffing?" he said, almost to himself. "Who - what in the name of Salazar's slippers gave us away..."

Suddenly something clicked in Harry's mind as images from their battle in the cottage flashed through his mind. "House-elves," he said, frowning. "Giovanni said something to you about house-elves..."

Malfoy lowered his hands slowly, his pointed, pale face impassive, his eyes cold and furious. Harry stood up, sensing trouble, and Ron took his place at his side.

"BLINKY!" Malfoy shouted, and with a _crack!_ the tiny house-elf appeared at his feet.

"Yes, Master Draco? Blinky is here! Ready to ser- _mmmfph_!"

In a flash, Malfoy had bound the elf's mouth with thick black magical tape emanating from his wand, wrapping itself around Blinky's face and neck and arms, pinning him to the wall as Hermione gasped in protest.

"Did you, or did you not, tell someone about Hermione visiting my place on Saturdays, or about something we talked about?"

Blinky's wide eyes blinked as he nodded fearfully. Malfoy slashed his wand across Blinky's taped mouth, ripping skin along with tape. " _Stop!_ " cried Hermione. "Don't hurt him!"

Malfoy ignored her, and Harry stepped closer, ready to step in, but also wanting the information on what had happened. He understood the bond between house-elves and their masters, being now master of Kreacher, but Malfoy was just barely toeing the line of torturous punishment...

"Who did you tell!" he demanded.

"Blinky told no witch or wizard, just like Master Draco said, Blinky only told Winky... Blinky is a good elf..." he squeaked helplessly, tears streaming from his wide eyes, his pointed ears twitching in pain. Harry heard Ron stifle a groan, as they both realized that Blinky had been obeying Malfoy only on a technicality - he must have told him not to tell any _witch_ or _wizard_ , but that order didn't include house-elves...

Malfoy glared at his elf. "And who told you you could visit your mother?" Blinky shut his eyes. "ANSWER ME!"

"Mistress Hermione did, sir," the elf choked out.

Hermione stumbled backwards, looking at Malfoy fearfully as he turned slowly to face her. Ron and Harry quickly stepped between them.

"Shove off, Scarface," Malfoy spat, elbowing Ron in the gut as he grabbed Harry's wrist with the other arm, spinning him flat on his back as he nonverbally Disarmed Ron with his recovering wand hand. He really had been taking lessons with Giovanni. Malfoy towered over them, his eyes flashing with rage. "I'm _not_ my father."

Hermione was looking at Malfoy steadily with her arms folded, and while there was still a glint of fear in her eyes, she gave Harry a quick glance of reassurance and he rose to his feet warily. He gave her a tiny smile in return as he glimpsed Hermione's hand fingering her wand in her upper robe pocket under her folded arms.

"I don't know, Draco," said Hermione coldly, and suddenly Harry was more afraid for Malfoy than for her. "You certainly are acting like him tonight." She gestured to the sniffling, still-bound house-elf.

Malfoy winced in pain and rubbed his left forearm. "And _you're_ certainly acting like a know-it-all Mudblood-" Hermione winced - "that presumes to know how to manage a house-elf! I _told_ you that I needed to explain-"

"Explain! You can _explain_ all you like, it's not an excuse for torture, no matter how many loopholes were in your idiotic orders to him! And there's no reason he couldn't visit his mother! I didn't - Blinky is still a _child_!" Her voice was livid, but Hermione was now, inexplicably, clutching her own left arm as well, revealing the wand she now held openly in her hands.

Malfoy stepped closer. "A child who swore fealty to ME! A magical bond that you DON'T UNDERSTAND, beyond anything you've ever experienced in your pathetic, squalid Muggle household of _dentists_..."

Hermione shoved him, and Malfoy stumbled back, raising his wand, a very Lucius-like fire glinting in his eyes for a brief moment as Harry and Ron tensed their grips on their own wands...

And then Malfoy opened his hand and his wand clattered to the floor, just before he had fully raised it, just before Hermione could cast a defensive spell with her own raised wand. He stared at his empty hand in the air blankly, breathing heavily.

"What curse were you going to use?" Hermione asked quietly, her voice shaking. "What were you going to use on me, Draco?"

After standing frozen, his hand in the air, for several long seconds, he slowly bent to pick up his wand and waved it lazily behind him, releasing Blinky from his bonds as he stared at the floor. "Blinky, go back to the Manor and do not speak a word," he hissed through clenched teeth, "Not to any witch, wizard, house-elf, or any other creature or thing, not even to yourself, until further notice."

 _Crack!_ The miserable house-elf left without so much as a 'Yes, sir'.

Then his master marched up to the fireplace, grabbed a handful of Floo powder, shouted "St. Mungo's!" and was gone.


	37. St. Mungo's

"Mother? It's me," whispered Hermione, looking despairingly at her still-dazed parents in their St. Mungos' hospital beds. Her father was dozing, but her mother looked at her with a confused expression.

"Hermione! Oh, look how you've grown!" It was the response she'd come to expect with every visit. She took a deep, shaky breath and forced herself not to blurt out the words she longed to... _I was just here last week, Mother, don't you remember?_ But no, that phrase was sure to send her parents spinning back into a catatonic state...

"Do you remember, when I came home from Hogwarts that one Christmas, and we went skiing? You, me, and Dad?" That was where they had left off, last time. At this rate, Hermione thought bitterly, they'd catch up to the present in another dozen years...

"Of course I do, that was just last Christmas!" exclaimed Jean Granger, but then she frowned. "Or was it? It _does_ seem long ago. Remind me where I am again? What day is it?"

She shook her head. "Don't worry about that, Mum, let's just talk. Remember how I accidentally used magic when the ski lift broke? The repairman never did figure out how -"

She found herself cut off by her mother's warm hand reaching out to rest on her shoulder. "I know something happened to us, Hermione, and I know you're trying to help. But right now I think we need to talk about you. Something's bothering you, honey, what is it?"

Hermione gasped and tried to hold back the tears welling up behind her eyes. It was the most lucid her mother had been since the recovery of their memories...

She knew she should force the conversation back to the past, back to the comfort level they had reached last time, but Hermione couldn't help herself. "It's... Mum, a young boy was hurt very badly, and I feel like it was my fault, at least partly..." her chest shook involuntarily and a sob escaped her lips. "And all because I just don't know as much about the wizarding world as other wizards! Because I think I know things, when I actually don't! I know _nothing_!"

A deeper voice to her mother's left cut in. "Now now, I know my girl would never hurt anyone, so you tell me right now, who made you think that it was your fault? Because whoever they are, they are wrong. So _very_ wrong."

Hermione couldn't help but laugh through her tears. Apparently her father had been awake, at least partially, the entire time. "Well, my... my boyfriend is angry with me for doing something for one of his... _servants_ , without his permission. But the thing is, he's not exactly wrong. I made a mistake. There's a certain magic that I interfered with, by telling his servant to visit his mother, I read about it afterwards in a book..."

"This boyfriend of yours, is it that Harry Potter boy, the one with the scar on his forehead?" her mother asked. "I know you are very fond of him."

She laughed again. "No, it's not Harry, he's just my best friend. He's not angry with me."

Quite the opposite, in fact - Harry had cradled her in his arms on the sofa in her Hogwarts bedroom for about an hour, until Ginny stormed in and sat across both of their laps, pressing a sloppy smooch to Hermione's protesting lips. _'What do you think, Hermione? I'd be a way better partner to you than Malfoy'_ , she had said matter-of-factly, causing Hermione to burst into a fit of laughter. Harry had lifted up his girlfriend by the waist and escorted her out of the room, his eyes only on Ginny, mock-scolding her with a wide grin on his face...

"What about that Ron fellow?"

Hermione sighed. "Well, he was no better, I mean, he took care of me that night in some ways, but I know he also disapproves of my thoughts on house-elves."

"Is this about S.P.E.W.?" asked her father, and then he gasped and pressed a hand to his forehead. It was a baby step forward, a new memory, but it was too much. Her father had passed out again.

"It was that Draco Malfoy boy, wasn't it?" her mother said softly, and Hermione honestly wondered, not for the first time, whether her mother was secretly a skilled Legilimens. "It was always either Ron or Draco who got you upset, because you loved one and hated the other. But now you've gone and fallen in love with Draco too, haven't you?"

Hermione started sobbing in earnest, nodding and leaning forward to bury her head in her mother's neck. Jean Granger's warm hands cradled her head, and she felt slightly silly for being nearly nineteen years old and still needing to be comforted by her mother.

"I want to be better for you, Hermione. I know I'm in some kind of hospital, there's all these crazy people around. That Gilderoy man next to us keeps saying he knows how to fix us, but also wants to give us his autograph, and the others across the room just keep moaning. Are we crazy too? Is that why we're here?"

Hermione gulped and straightened up. "You're not crazy, Mother, you've just... lost some of your memories."

And then her mother gasped and held her hands to her own head in pain. After a few long moments, she blinked and looked around in a daze.

"Oh, Hermione, look how you've grown!"

* * *

Thirty-six hours and counting. Max was still unconscious. And Draco was still sitting by his side, monitoring Max's breathing, keeping track of his doses of potions administered by the occasional Healer that walked in, making sure they didn't make a single mistake.

The guilt was overwhelming. Why had he ever thought it was a reasonable idea to involve him? For the first time in his life he found himself understanding his parents, his teachers, even Professor McGonagall. It was unbearable to watch a young person get hurt who you felt responsible for, when you could have protected them, could have ensured their safety...

 _Amelia Wadsworth, Ollivander, Elwin Dolohov, Louise_... was Max Carrow going to be added to the list? Would he haunt his nightmares and show up as his Boggart? Scream in his head when Dementors came around?

He heard footsteps coming down the hospital corridor, and stood up instinctively when Hermione stepped into the room. Her eyes gave away that she had recently been crying, and his heart gave a horrible lurch as his anger and guilt towards the woman before him clashed with his desperate desire to hold her in his arms...

She approached them silently and stretched a shaking hand towards Draco above the young boy on the hospital bed. He reached out and took her hand before he could stop himself.

 _'Force Jinx,'_ he sent her before she could say anything, the answer to the last question she had asked him tumbling from his mind and towards her hand. _'I was about to use a Force Jinx on you, back at Potter's place.'_ Bile rose to his throat as he remembered his father casting the same jinx on his mother when he was furious with her, bruising her arms and face...

Hermione nodded slowly. He waited with bated breath for her response, but none came, and she silently squeezed his hand and let it go. Placing a brief, concerned hand on Max's shoulder, she spun around without a word and walked quickly from the room.


	38. Justice, Not War

It was Wednesday morning, and for the first time in her life Hermione considered skipping classes, in order to go to St. Mungo's. There was still no word from Draco or Max, and a heavy cloud seemed to hang over Hogwarts, Max's new group of friends whispering nervously to each other every morning, rumors spreading through the school about Giovanni's criminality and capture. The only positive change was that the Boy Who Lived himself was now teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, but even he was downcast and nervous, repeatedly thumbing through the _Daily Prophet_ 's obituary section every morning, stumbling in his first few lectures and finally letting the classes devolve into a question-and-answer session about the recent battle with Giovanni and his men.

She picked at her eggs, only half-hearing what Dean was saying to her about partnering in Potions today, noticing that the house-elves had finally stopped serving her sausages and meat. But with the thoughts of house-elves and the meat industry, her mind went straight back to Draco, Blinky, Max Carrow...

Suddenly there was a collective gasp from the direction of the Slytherin table, and heads were swiveling towards the entrance to the Great Hall.

"IT'S MAX!" shrieked a brown-haired Ravenclaw girl with long braided pigtails, and Hermione looked quickly around. Max Carrow was strutting into the Great Hall like the arrogant young Slytherin he was, one of his arms in a sling under his robes and what seemed to be a magical bandage around his upper torso.

Many students stood up, several of Max's closest friends ran to him, including the young Ravenclaw girl, and started bombarding him with questions. Hermione beamed as she watched Max puff out his little chest, particularly towards the Ravenclaw girl, as he described his adventures with what she was sure was a very exaggerated spin.

Then a tall, pale figure walked into the Great Hall, his grey eyes sweeping the room until they landed on Hermione's bushy ponytail. He looked utterly exhausted, as though he wanted to smile but didn't have the energy to muster the expression.

She stood up and walked straight towards him, and noticed out of the corner of her eye that Harry had motioned to some of the other instructors and they were moving towards the entrance behind her. Perhaps Harry thought Draco would still want to hurt her?

Paying them no mind, Hermione wrapped her arms around Draco's waist, smelling three days' worth of showerless, sleepless anxiety through his robes. His head slumped onto her shoulder as he wrapped one weak arm around her shoulders and put the other hand to her temple.

_'You still forgive me. Why do you still forgive me, after what I was about to do?'_

Hermione wasn't sure what she was expecting to hear, but it wasn't that.

_'You didn't do it, Draco, you dropped your wand before you cast that spell. There's nothing for me to forgive, though you should apologize for Blinky for tying him up and hurting him like that. But it's also me who messed up, with Blinky... I'm sorry...'_

_'You did nothing wrong, you couldn't have known...'_

Then Draco kissed her as if his life depended on it, and she kissed him back desperately, their thoughts and relief flowing through each other's touches...

" _Protego!_ "

Hermione jumped as she became aware that they had just kissed in front of the entire Great Hall, and she and Draco looked up to see themselves surrounded by Harry, Professor McGonagall, Professor Slughorn, and Hagrid, with Mulciber and several other angry-looking students pointing wands in their direction.

"Why, Mr. Mulciber, may I ask, were you trying to hex your fellow students?" Professor McGonagall's steely voice cut through the silence in the Hall.

"Because it's not right," growled Mulciber. "Draco Malfoy, a blood traitor! We knew he was hiding it, all along! It's not right! They should be expelled, for doing that in front of the younger students!"

"Mr. Malfoy and Miss Granger, I am afraid I must take five points off of each of your Houses for that inappropriate public display of affection," she replied, not taking her eyes off Mulciber, and Draco smirked as Hermione blushed. "And Mr. Mulciber, I am docking fifty points from Slytherin for your horrid display of intolerance in front of the other students!"

Mulciber scowled and gave one final glare towards Malfoy before nodding to his cronies and stalking off back towards the Slytherin table.

"Thanks," Hermione addressed Harry, finally realizing why he had summoned the other teachers to follow her to the entrance.

"Don't mention it," said Harry, grinning, putting a hand on Hermione's shoulder and nodding to Draco before trotting back up towards the staff table.

Preston Logan was now shaking Max's hand and welcoming him back with relief, and finally the Ravenclaw girl whispered something into Max's ear and then ran back to her table, giggling along with her friends. The Slytherin boy's chest somehow puffed out even more from behind his bandages as he strutted to his table to sit down for breakfast.

* * *

"Blinky!"

Draco had his arm wrapped around Hermione's shoulders in his bedroom in Slytherin tower that evening, after a joyous day of partnering in Potions together, cuddling together as he caught up on sleep in breaks between classes, and telling the same stories to everyone who asked about whether they had indeed had a secret relationship this entire time.

But it was time to sort out the last of the messes.

 _Crack!_ Blinky appeared at his feet, bowing his head and not saying a word.

"You can speak again, Blinky."

Blinky nodded. "Yes, sir," he squeaked uncertainly.

"Blinky," Draco started, and took a deep breath. "I want to ask for your forgiveness, for how I treated you on Sunday night. I am not ordering you to forgive me, so I'd like you to only forgive me if you'd like to." It felt wrong, against the Master-Elf magical bonds, but he said it anyway, Hermione silently urging him on at his side.

To his surprise, the elf blinked his wide eyes with excitement. "Master Draco is apologizing to Blinky, and asking for his forgiveness! Blinky knew Master Draco was to be a wonderful master, treating Blinky as Dobby the Free would have wanted! Blinky gladly forgives Master Draco!"

He hopped up next to Draco on the bed and grabbed his arm with his bony fingers. "Blinky forgives Master Draco for hurting Blinky even when Blinky was obeying orders, and forgives him for killing his friends that he speaks of in his sleep, and forgives him for unwillingly fighting with Mistress Bellatrix against Blinky's father, Dobby the Free! Blinky forgives Master Draco for everything!" he squeaked excitedly.

Draco gasped as a strong tingling sensation nearly burned across his forearm, and he looked to see the skull and snake of the Dark Mark fading under Blinky's touch as the elf babbled on.

"Hermione...!"

"I know, I can see it! It's really fading! Do you think...?"

"Elf magic," he whispered, looking down at his house-elf with a newfound wonder. "Blinky, I think you just removed my Dark Mark..."

Blinky jumped down from the bed quickly. "Did Blinky do wrong, Master Draco?"

"No, Blinky, not at all," he said quickly, rubbing his hand over his smooth pale forearm, hardly daring to believe that it was real. "You did exactly what you should have, Blinky. Now, can you do the same for Hermione's?"

Hermione pulled up her sleeve to reveal the dark _Mudblood_ scars on her forearm, biting her lip. "I think I might need something different, Blinky," she said. "You offered Draco your forgiveness, but I believe I need to be offered... acceptance. Would you accept me, as a true member of the Wizarding community, despite the errors I have made towards your kind?"

Blinky looked thoughtfully back at her, then swiveled his head between the two humans before addressing Draco again. "Does Master Draco love Mistress Hermione?"

And then Draco understood, why Blinky had been asking him that question so often. It wasn't a mere curiosity of a child; the elf needed to form a servitude bond with Hermione in order to work his full magic on her...

He turned to the witch sitting next to him. "Are you ready to own a house-elf?"

Hermione looked at him warily, opened her mouth as if to protest, but then closed it again and nodded. "It's about time I learn what it's all about," she said, giving a half-shrug.

"Blinky," Draco swallowed. "I love Hermione as much as a man can ever love a woman."

Blinky gave Hermione his lowest bow, and she gasped as the elf magic locked into place. "Oh Merlin, I never knew it really felt like that... I just figured it was all made up, the 'feelings of power and commitment' between a wizard or witch and their house-elf..."

"Welcome to the Wizarding World, Hermione Granger," Draco smirked, and watched as Blinky reached his bony fingers up to touch her scars. She closed her eyes as the dark marks vanished from her skin.

* * *

Blinky stepped back and covered his large eyes with his hands as Master Draco and Mistress Hermione embraced, as he felt his Master's desire for his Mistress through the ancient bonds of ownership. Winky had always told him not to observe any part of wizard mating rituals.

"Go on, try it," he heard Master whisper to Mistress, and Blinky peeked through his nearly closed eyelids to see him speaking directly into Mistress Hermione's ear. "Give him your first command."

Blinky felt a new wave of emotion, this time coming from Mistress - one of uncertainty, doubt, curiosity, and excitement all at once. He shut his eyes tight again. Blinky didn't know it was possible to feel so many things at once!

"Blinky," came the shaky voice of his new Mistress. "I - um, thank you so much for everything you've done for us. I - I'd like you to go home to the Manor now."

All at once Blinky was overcome with the magical urge to carry out his owner's commands to perfection. Bowing low, he Disapparated to the large, empty Manor, landing in the library and rushing around in his excitement to find something to clean. He squealed to himself as he felt the elf-witch bond tighten between himself and Mistress Hermione.

Finally he found something to clean: Master Draco's socks! Several pairs were left lying around his bedroom, certainly not intended to set him free, just for him to clean... Blinky magically levitated the socks towards the washroom, being careful not to touch one or accidentally claim one for himself...

He paused, letting the socks droop towards the ground, as he passed by the tiny moving pictures of the former House-Elves of Malfoy Manor that had magically imprinted themselves on the wall of an ancient enchanted hallway. In the last photo, Dobby the Free was waving to Blinky from his picture, proudly holding up the sock that Master Lucius had freed him with, thanks to Harry Potter. There were scorch marks on the wall all around the photograph, marking where the Malfoys had apparently tried to erase Dobby from their family House-Elf history, but the picture was untainted.

 _Now, remember, Blinky, Father Dobby was a bad, bad elf!_ Mother Winky's voice scolded him from the back of his mind. _Dobby liked being free, yes, Dobby tried to get other house-elves to want to be free! Winky would give anything to be owned again, yes, Winky was bad too, but Winky knows her place... and Blinky must know it too!_

Blinky let the socks fall completely and scratched his head, thinking. If Winky was bad sometimes, and was wrong to tell the bad Giovanni man what he had told her about Master Draco, then how did Blinky know what Winky was right about? How did he know she was right about Dobby the Free? Dobby the Free, whose ears look just like Blinky's?

 _Hermione Granger is a danger_ , Winky had told him just before he had finally convinced Master Draco to own him. _Blinky mustn't listen to her, she will try to free you with clothes!_

Blinky shook his head and closed his eyes, whacking himself lightly on the forehead. Then he remembered another voice, that of Master Draco: _You answer to me now, Blinky, as your highest command. Not to Winky, not to the memory of Dobby. First to Master Draco, then to Blinky himself. Do you understand?_

He opened his eyes to find Father Dobby's picture smiling at him proudly. Maybe some day, maybe he could ask Mistress Hermione for freedom... could he become Blinky the Free?

Blinky gasped at his thoughts and hurriedly turned back to his pile of socks, levitating them to make them float down the hallway once again. But he couldn't prevent a small giggle from escaping his mouth as he glanced back towards the smiling portrait of Dobby the Free one last time.

* * *

"The Wizengamot summons Giovanni Bellavita to the floor."

Alexa Wadsworth grinned in perfect satisfaction from her seat in the witness's stand as she watched Giovanni stumble into the courtroom, clutching his head and groaning. A headache from his broken Promise Charm was exactly what the man deserved.

She straightened her favorite checkered stockings, glancing up at her beloved daughter, who was smiling at her from across the courtroom. Draco Malfoy stood to serve as the first witness to Giovanni's crimes, and she thought of how misplaced her anger had been, at this young man who had been forced to do the Dark Lord's bidding, the man who she was sure had paid for her daughter's treatment.

Hermione Granger stood next, delivering as perfect of an incrimination of Giovanni as she had given Draco praise at his trial. She made a mental note to vote for the young witch for Minister of Magic if she ever ran one day.

"Alexa Wadsworth, can you confirm your sightings of the named children entering the Room of Recovery at night?" She was being called upon to verify that Giovanni had indeed used the Polyjuice potion in order to sneak into the Room of Recovery as one of the students who had used the room that day. She stood up and croaked out her confirmation, hoping it would be enough, never having liked speaking in front of an audience.

Harry Potter and Ron Weasley spoke last, giving an Auror's account of the battles with Los Stregones and Giovanni's involvement with the kidnappings and thievery.

There was no witness for the defense.

Giovanni still clutched his head in agony as he was led from the courtroom, having been convicted as guilty on all charges and sentenced to eight years in Azkaban. _Sometimes_ , Alexa thought, _yes, sometimes, the world was fair and just._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: While Hermione got back with Draco for now because he didn't actually hit her and she doesn't believe he ever would have, I do not condone women staying with any boyfriend who even *thinks* about hitting their girlfriend. Hermione's brilliant but still very young in this novel (only two years after she immaturely dated McLaggen just to make Ron jealous) so I wrote her as making a somewhat naive decision here - while Draco's working on himself, his dark side still comes out when he's angry or afraid.


	39. Recovery

Springtime at Hogwarts was a whirl of focused studying, Hermione and Draco returning to their weekly Bugby's Bean sessions for the sole purpose of scoring highly enough on their exams to attend St. Catterwalls'. The Wizarding university had sent both of them an acceptance letter contingent on their exam scores, and there was nothing to do now but ensure that those scores were up to par.

With the help of Ginny, George, and Mr. Weasley, they had patented their Eternal Patronus Device, and the sales were more than enough to cover the cost of Hermione's parents' medical bills and put herself through college. It seemed that everyone wanted a small device that brightened the mood after the war; students were seen fiddling with the glowing devices in the halls of Hogwarts, the teachers attached them to their office desks, the restaurants in Hogsmeade hung them over the tables. Draco had rolled his eyes when for the seventeenth time Hermione had refused his offer to help her financially, and had haughtily proclaimed herself an independent witch when the money started rolling in.

To no one's surprise but their own, they each passed their NEWTS with flying colors, Draco's great dragon Patronus earning him a burst of applause from the examiners and an impressed nod from Harry Potter himself.

After the final day of examinations, the pair were walking aimlessly through the halls, hand in hand, arguing about the best way to use magic to improve human space travel. Out of the corner of his eye, Draco glimpsed an unearthly light floating through the windows, and realized that one of his signature rainbows had appeared, in all its dark purple and bluish glory. That hadn't happened since way back when he used to play with Louise... was he really that childlishly happy right now? Why did he have such a good feeling about today?

"Ahem." Professor McGonagall cleared her throat ahead of them. He rolled his eyes. So much for a good feeling.

"Mr. Malfoy, would you step into my office please? Yes, Miss Granger, you may come in too if you wish."

They glanced at each other and followed the headmaster up the spiral staircase past the gargyole. By her desk stood Kingsley, tall and regal in his Auror robes.

"Mr. Malfoy. Thank you again for your services to the Ministry."

Draco raised an eyebrow. _'What, are they going to give me a medal?'_

 _'I have no idea,'_ sent Hermione back.

"I was just telling your Headmistress that in light of further witness reports, the Ministry has decided to release your mother from Azkaban."

His heart seemed to give a violent twist as it tried to leap for joy at the news, while simultaneously constricting with the awareness of Hermione's parents' situation by contrast. Her hand slipped from his and clenched into a fist, and he felt her breathing heavily beside him. What were they _thinking_ , inviting her to come into the office with him?

They weren't, the imbeciles.

"That's great news!" Hermione said after an awkward pause, composing herself impressively quickly. Then she frowned. " _What_ further witness reports?"

Professor McGonagall gave a tight-lipped smile and her eyes seemed to twinkle for a moment. "I believe Mr. Malfoy has our caretaker, Alexa Wadsworth, to thank, although she says that no thanks are necessary and that she knows it was you who paid for her daughter's treatments. She also says she is sorry for eavesdropping outside your bedroom window to find that out."

Draco couldn't help but bark out a laugh, and he blinked a few times as the information sunk in. Of course - Amelia Wadsworth _would_ have a testimony in favor of his mother, who had screamed in protest when Draco was ordered to torture his first victim. He flinched as he remembered the Dark Lord turning his merciless red eyes towards Narcissa...

Then Hermione's hand slipped back into his, tugging him back to reality.

"Are there any conditions on her release? Bail, or guards...?"

"She'll need no guard as long as she agrees to be confined to the Manor for one year," boomed Kingsley, "Would you be able to see to it that the arrangement is satisfactory?"

Draco recognized the warning that came along with that question. If she showed any signs of resistence, the trial period would be over and she would serve her full sentence. He nodded and resisted the urge to sneer. "I will see to it."

"Very well, then," said Professor McGonagall crisply. "You may travel with Kingsley to Azkaban to meet Mrs. Malfoy upon release."

"If you'll give me a moment, please." He turned to Hermione and took both her hands in his, ignoring McGonagall's quizzical stare. _'It'll be your turn next, I swear, I'll major in memory charms at St. Catterwalls' just to sort your parents out...'_

_'Forget about it, Draco, I'm happy for you. This is your day. Let's go.'_

He wasn't fooled by her chipper tone, but nodded, glad she was willing to come with him. He wondered amusedly what his mother would think about Hermione Granger accompanying her son to pick her up from Wizarding prison.

Kingsley led them across the grounds towards the Apparition Boundary, and just as the Auror was starting to give them instructions on where they would be Apparating to first, someone called out to them from a far distance away.

"Hermione! Hermione!" A slightly chubby young wizard was running, panting, towards them down the main street of Hogsmeade. As the man approached, Draco realized it was Neville Longbottom, who had gained back quite a bit of weight in the months since he had given up Auror training to start his own magical garden. Longbottom bent over, hands on his knees, when he reached them, catching his breath.

"Hermione! I was hoping to find you here! You've got to come to St. Mungo's! Your parents! They - they're -"

She gasped. "What happened?"

"Lockhart," gasped Neville, "Gilderoy Lockhart, he grabbed my wand, there was nothing I could do, and he did some kind of powerful memory restoring charm... it seems like your parents have more of their memories back! They're asking to see you, I'm not sure if they're totally better, but something definitely happened, I was just there visiting my parents and it all happened so quickly..."

Hermione turned to face Draco, her brown eyes wild with anticipation. "I'll meet you in the Astronomy Tower at midnight?"

He nodded and quickly pulled her into a searing kiss, hoping beyond all reality that her parents really had been healed by some magical stroke of the wand of a raving lunatic.

* * *

"Ah, this must be the young lady herself! Surely you'll be wanting my autograph! I _do_ now finally remember what I became so famous for, my memory charms, surely! Ironic, isn't it, but then, you can't spell _Lockhart_ without the 'c' from ironic! Now, which book will it be?"

Hermione laughed and shook her head at her handsome - if still recovering - former teacher, looking ahead towards her parents' hospital beds. "Thank you, Professor Lockhart, but I won't be needing an autograph today. If you'll excuse me."

"Professor! Interesting, that's just what this young man called me the other day..." he muttered to himself, gesturing to Neville, who had accompanied Hermione back to St. Mungo's.

"Hermione."

Hermione gulped. It was her father, who was never first to address her. Her heart hammered in her chest as she tried to clamp down on her soaring hopes... surely they could not have been Healed so easily...

"Dad? Do you know your name?"

"Henry Granger. I'm Henry Granger, you're my daughter, you're nineteen years old, and we apparently missed the last two years of your life. What happened? Why did we suddenly forget who we were and want to move to Australia? Did one of your people hex us?"

Jean Granger was clutching her husband's hand nervously, and Hermione suspected that her mother already suspected that it was her. _Bloody Muggle Legilimens_ , she thought, and decided on the spot to tell them the truth.

"I did, Dad." She wrung her hands together nervously but looked him in the eye. "I wiped your memories and sent you away, because... because Voldemort's followers were starting to torture Muggles and Muggle-borns for information on Harry Potter, and I was just too closely connected to Harry. There was a terrible war, the Wizarding world was split into two sides, and..."

"And you thought it would be better to send us away than to have us around to protect you!?"

"There was nothing you could have done!" she cried. "You can't fight the Cruciatus curse with knives and guns!" Neville winced next to her and glanced over at his parents, who were babbling nonsense in the corner of the ward. He shuffled over to Mrs. Longbottom and held her hand in his.

"We could have hired security guards! You could have come away with us, we could have all moved to Australia..."

"They would have hunted us down! See those people over there, Neville's parents? They were _wizards_ trained in magical combat, and they were tortured into permanent insanity! We had no chance of living in peace until we defeated Voldemort..."

"Until you _defeated_ him!" exclaimed Henry, his bushy brown beard quivering. "Don't tell me you were out there fighting in this ridiculous war while you sent us off - did we teach you nothing about pacifism!"

Jean gripped his hand harder and cut him off. "Honey, let's just listen to what happened, we can argue later," she said firmly. "Did you defeat Voldemort then? You went off and helped Harry kill him?"

"I have no idea how you guess correctly so often, Mum, but I'm pretty sure there's some latent magical powers hiding in your genes somewhere," Hermione smiled. "But yes, the war is over. Voldemort had split his soul into seven pieces, and we spent a year in hiding, traveling from place to place hunting down the pieces of his soul and destroying them one by one. There was a massive battle at Hogwarts that ended with Harry finishing him off and his followers disbanding or being thrown in the wizards' prison."

"Azkaban?" her father asked, and she nodded, grinning at how much they now remembered.

"Yes, Azkaban. Then all the Muggles or Muggle-borns who were sent into hiding were free to live their lives normally again, but you two, well, I did a bit too good of a job hiding you and hiding your memories, and it, well, it took me a while, to get them back. And the originals were destroyed by someone trying to steal them for ransom, and luckily I had made copies, but the copies weren't perfect, and...."

"Woah, slow down, Hermione, this is a lot for us to take in," said her mother. "I think we should first sort out our plans to move back to England, see if we can reopen Granger Dental, and then we'll have a nice dinner as a family in which Hermione will fill us in on everything. And maybe another dinner in which you can introduce us to that Malfoy boy." She winked, and Hermione put her face in her hands. Gilderoy Lockhart had done altogether too good of a job restoring their memories...

"Speaking of Granger Dental," added her father sharply, rising out of his hospital bed and looming over her. "I'll bet my girl hasn't had a cleaning in two years, has she?"

Hermione beamed at him, her yellowing, war-chipped witch's teeth revealing herself guilty. "Top on my priority list after Granger Dental is back open, Dad." Then she threw her arms around her father and laughed.

* * *

Narcissa Black Malfoy closed her eyes as she heard footsteps approaching her cell, bracing herself for whatever the guards were bringing this time, enshrined in their Patronuses but flanked by dementors. She patted her chest where she still imagined she had Draco's eternal Patronus device tucked away, pretending that she hadn't wandlessly levitated it over into her husband's cell months ago.

She was a Black, after all, and could handle the strain better than a Malfoy ever could.

 _Lucius is alive, Draco is safe_ , she repeated to herself as her darker thoughts invaded her mind once again. _These thoughts and fears will pass..._

"Mother!"

The joy in her son's voice was so fervent that she knew she must be hallucinating again. And yet she had promised herself that she would respond to every specter of her son, so that she was responding properly enough when it was the real him. "Draco?"

"You're free, let's go, time to go back to the Manor..."

Her cell door clicked open and Narcissa vaguely became aware of several figures standing before her. A warm hand that she could have sworn was her husband's firmly pulled her upwards from her spot on the cold ground, and yet as she looked up into the man's face she recognized it as Draco. Definitely a hallucination, a morsel of happiness that the Dementors were feeding on...

And yet, as she followed her son and two guards through the hallways of the prison, she squeezed the hand back that was holding hers, felt his disjointed thoughts coming through their connection, and wondered that it just might be real, like the other times he had reached through the bars. She paused as they passed Lucius's cell, and Draco swallowed before following his mother's gaze towards his father.

"One moment, please?" he asked the guards, who whispered to each other and then nodded.

Lucius was leaning against the wall of his cell, his left hand closed tightly around a small object like it was a lifeline. He was looking haggard but vital, and there was a light in his eyes that did not belong to most prisoners of Azkaban. His head swiveled towards them suddenly.

"Narcissa? Draco?"

"Lucius!" Narcissa ran towards the bars and grabbed onto them, pressing her face between the metal rods. "I'm out, but we'll come visit as often as we can. Hang onto this," she said, and made a show of removing something from her breast pocket and opening his left hand to place it in his. She glanced at Draco to see if he was falling for her act, or whether he would realize that she had been managing without the Patronus all this time. He simply raised an eyebrow at her, and she nearly laughed to herself for the first time in a year. There was no getting past her Legilimens of a son.

Lucius saw the exchange and raised an identical eyebrow, smirking slightly as he too understood the game that Narcissa had been playing and that Draco had been aware of. She realized that Draco must have meant the device for his father all along, but not dared sneak two devices into Azkaban, and knew that she would find a way to get it to him out of her own selflessness. They had indeed raised an intelligent young man.

"Father," Draco nodded to Lucius, who nodded back, and Narcissa gave her husband's hand a final squeeze before following Draco and the guards out of Azkaban. Few words needed to be exchanged for the three of them to know that, in some sense, they were a family again.

* * *

Pansy glared in his direction as Draco and his mother passed her cell in silence, Goyle gave a confused half-wave before swatting at something invisible, shivering as a Dementor swept by his cell. Draco kept his eyes straight ahead as they neared the exit, not particularly wanting to look into the eyes of the older Death Eaters that once gathered in his home.

He felt his mother regaining her own strength as they stepped out into the fresh, misty ocean air of the island prison, drawing up to her full, proud height - nearly that of Draco's - once again, and turning to give him a tentative smile, as if testing out the atrophied muscles in her cheeks.

"Let's go home, mother." He spun them together, glimpsing a dark, glittering rainbow behind him as he Apparated them to the Manor.

 _'Draco'_ , his mother's thoughts came easily through his hand, as they had practiced with Weak Legilimency so many times before. _'There's something you're hiding from me, what is it?'_

He avoided her eyes as they walked across the gardens. _'I got into St. Catterwalls, I didn't tell you, I'll be going there next year...'_

Narcissa put a hand to his face and forced him to look into her gaunt eyes. She narrowed her features and frowned, and Draco put up as many shields as possible, but knew he was in trouble. His Occlumency always seemed to be good enough for everyone but his mother.

_'A girl! Well, why didn't you tell me? What's her name?'_

He snatched his hand away and backed up, hoping to block the name from slipping out. "None of your business, Mother..."

"Hermione Granger," she breathed. "The Muggle-born that... well. I knew you fancied her before, but after everything - still, Draco? And she was willing? No love potions or Imperius-"

"How _dare_ you? I'd never-" Draco took a breath to calm himself. "Yes, we're together, no magic."

Narcissa looked from her son to the Manor and back again, seeming to struggle with herself. Finally, she managed a tight-lipped smile.

"Well, as long as you don't marry her."

Grateful that that was the worst of it, Draco simply smiled and took his mother's hand again, leading them the rest of the way towards Malfoy Manor, to Blinky's enthusiastic servitude, to home.


	40. Muggles and Magic

"So, what should I know about dentists?"

Hermione chuckled at Draco's nervousness as they walked through the busy, sunlit streets of Hogsmeade, looking for a good place to Apparate. "Honestly, Draco, you lived with Voldemort for a year and you're afraid of a couple of Muggles?"

"I'm not afraid," he insisted stubbornly, running a hand haughtily through his blond hair, trying to calm his racing pulse. "Just trying to be prepared."

"Well, dentists clean and fix people's teeth, I've told you that," she said, stopping beside a shaded tree and holding out her arm to Apparate them to her parents' new place back in England. He simply scowled at her arm.

"They're not going to like me."

"And why would you think that?"

"Muggles hate Wizards."

Hermione rolled her eyes and grabbed his hand, Apparating both of them to her parents' doorstep and promptly ringing the doorbell before Draco could protest.

"Hermione!" The door flew open and a middle-aged, bushy-haired woman with a dazzling smile of perfectly straight teeth wrapped Hermione in a hug. Jean Granger looked far more vibrant than the dazed bed-ridden hospital patient he had seen in St. Mungo's, and there was a twinkle in her eyes that wasn't there when they had found them in Australia to restore their memories.

Henry Granger, whose grin was also dazzling but a bit more buck-toothed, appeared behind his wife and took his turn hugging Hermione when Jean released her.

"And you must be Draco!" exclaimed Mrs. Granger. "I think I remember you, actually, and your father... my, you've grown up, haven't you?"

Draco made an effort not to wince at the memory of his father sneering at the Grangers... or, more accurately, sneering at the Weasleys for interacting with the Grangers in Diagon Alley. Before he could decide how to react, he found himself being pulled into a hug with the shorter woman, and decided to put a neutral smile on his face.

"Nice to officially meet you, Mrs. Granger."

He turned to Mr. Granger, whose smile fell when he shook Draco's hand, gripping it a little too hard and staring him down. "Mr. Malfoy, we meet at last. I hear you were instrumental in helping restore our memories after the war."

"Yes, sir," Draco nodded, returning his gaze, wondering if Mr. Granger held some distrust of Wizards, like so many Muggles do.

Finally he released his hand. "Well, come on in, then."

Draco surveyed his surroundings as he crossed the threshhold. _Wrong, wrong, and wrong again_ \- the simple but clean furnishings, the frozen family portraits on the walls, the few remaining boxes in the corners waiting to be unpacked, a warm and inviting cinnamon-tinted aroma floating in from the kitchen...

Indeed, there was no trace of the squalor and decrepit Muggle living conditions described in the Pureblood Post. Perhaps the paper doctored the photos, as they did with blood color? Or perhaps Hermione's parents were practically Muggle royalty? He had never been so sorry to have opted out of Muggle Studies every year at Hogwarts...

"Shoes off, please!"

 _Aha, no self-cleaning magical carpets_ , he realized as he pointed his wand at his laces and untied his shoes.

"Draco, take a seat," urged Mrs. Granger, ushering him over to the table as soon as his shoes were off. "Food will be ready in just a few minutes! Hermione, get that wand of yours out and help me out here, would you?"

Hermione and her mother disappeared behind the countertops, and Draco sat down in a comfortable chair, still scanning the Muggle home. Mr. Granger plopped down across from him and looked at the ceiling awkwardly.

"So," said Draco in an attempt to break the silence. "How is moving coming along? Looks like you've gotten mostly unpacked."

Mr. Granger looked at Draco and raised his eyebrows, then seemed to collect himself and nodded. "Yep. The piano over there was probably the toughest to get here safely, didn't want to subject it to Hermione's shrinking charms, it's too delicate of an instrument, you know? But we just have the books to sort back onto the shelves and then we'll be set."

"I can help with that too!" Hermione called from the kitchen, poking her head around the door. "There's a sorting spell, it can sort them alphabetically, and I'm even getting good enough to do it by subject and _then_ by title..."

" _Hermione, get back in here!_ The potatoes are nearly done!"

"Oh - sorry Mom!" she disappeared again, leaving Draco and Mr. Granger both chuckling in her wake.

Draco stood and walked around the table to approach the piano in the corner. "A Yamaha," he murmered in appreciation. "Did you know Yamaha himself was a famous Japanese wizard in his day? Hand-made pianos like no other..."

"You're saying our piano is Wizard-made?" asked Mr. Granger, raising a wary but interested eyebrow.

"Not necessarily this specific piano, after he died some Mug- I mean, non-wizards- figured out how to approximate those resonating bass notes with technology of their own."

"We know what Muggles are, dear," said Jean with a smile, emerging from the kitchen with a steaming pot of potatoes. "And Hermione tells me you're quite the musician yourself."

"Well, I play the - a sort of horn, yes."

"We'll just have to hear you play sometime, then!"

Draco wasn't sure what to make of the scene; it seemed Mrs. Granger was trying to compensate for Mr. Granger's general wariness with over-exuberance, while Hermione emerged from the kitchen with another steaming dish, biting her lip and looking nervously between her parents.

"Let's eat!" said Hermione hurriedly, marching over to Draco and grabbed his hand to lead him to the table.

 _'Go to the loo or something, will you?'_ her thoughts came through their link. _'Need to talk to my parents.'_

Fair enough. He excused himself and Mrs. Granger pointed him down the hall. As he struggled to find the light switch in the Muggle water closet, he heard Hermione's hushed voice from the dining room...

_"...Just treat him like a normal guest, will you, Dad?"_

_"I'm just testing him, if he's going to date my daughter..."_

_"No need to test him, dear, I'm sure Hermione knows what she's doing..."_

_"He made her cry, didn't he? Before? What kind of guy..."_

_"Oh, how many times have you made Mum cry, Dad?"_

_"That's different..."_

Draco chuckled to himself, realizing that it wasn't his wizardry that Mr. Granger was wary of, but rather his proclivity at being rather nasty sometimes. Focusing his attention back on the darkened room, he took out his wand and aimed a _Stupefy_ at the ceiling light, which illuminated the washroom long enough for him to find the switch at last.

A normal toilet, a normal sink, a normal bath. Not the dirty holes dug in the ground that he had read about... or was that only some parts of the Muggle world? He glanced towards a stack of magazines and newspapers sitting a shelf near the sink...

A corner of one of the Muggle papers caught his attention and he snatched it up, his heart beating rapidly as he unfolded the news. A stock-still photograph of Louise, at age sixteen, stared blankly back at him with an unmoving smile, under the headline, "MISSING GIRL'S REMAINS DISCOVERED." He read fervently:

>    
>  The case of the missing girl Louise Woods has been closed, as the human remains found near a stream in Black Forest have been positively identified, through DNA testing, as those of the missing teenager.
> 
> 'I'm just glad we found out what happened,' said Emily Woods, Louise's mother. 'She must have fallen and hit her head with no one around, [Louise] always loved running around in those trees.'
> 
> Police Chief Roberts confirms that the death seems to have been accidental, though this far after the time of death it is hard to be certain.
> 
> 'It's one of those things we'll just never know. We regret that we couldn't find her earlier. While there's no known danger in those woods, we still urge families to take precautions and avoid traveling in those parts alone until further notice.'
> 
> The Woods family has set up a small memorial to Louise near the place where her remains were found and later buried.

 

Draco closed the paper and stopped reading, closing his eyes and leaning against the wall, the soft hum of the fan whirring indifferently around him. Louise was buried just behind Malfoy Manor...

Control, he thought, taking a deep, shaky breath and shoving the information into a corner of his mind. Close the lid, open it later. He washed his hands and splashed water on his face, taking another breath and preparing to return for a dinner with Muggles.

* * *

All in all, Hermione thought, the dinner had gone rather well, once they gave Dad a quick talking-to. Draco had seemed a bit nervous or unsettled by something at first, but quickly livened up when he realized her parents were careful about energy usage and living close to work, about recycling and buying local products. That there were Muggles who cared about their technology's impact on the world.

Hermione had cringed when they asked Draco to show them some of his favorite 'magic tricks', but Draco politely obliged with a few flashy Transfigurations and a conjured serpent, which earned him applause that he wasn't quite sure how to take. The evening ended with Hermione and Draco racing to magically sort the Grangers' remaining books onto their shelves.

 _And now_ , she thought to herself, _it's my turn_.

It was the next morning, and she found herself walking with Draco across the lawn of the Manor, where Narcissa had invited her to join them for tea. The very air of the surroundings seemed crisper, the walls yet more ornate, as if the mansion knew that the Lady of the Manor had returned, and had shifted to accomodate her presence.

Blinky opened the large front door before they even reached it, waving and squealing with joy.

"Lady Malfoy is ready and waiting, Master and Mistress! Blinky has prepared only the best of teas!"

Hermione smiled and bowed back to Blinky, as had become their new tradition, which never failed to made Blinky cackle with delight and Draco roll his eyes.

"Miss Granger, we meet again."

Her temporary joy seemed to be snuffed out to a stifling seriousness as she set eyes on Narcissa Malfoy, the worry lines on the woman's face that marked her time in Azkaban having settled into regal marks of age and power.

"Mrs. Malfoy, it's a pleasure," she nodded, taking her extended hand and forcing herself not to think of the last time she had looked into this same woman's cold, grey, piercing eyes. Hermione felt the prodding of Legilimency into her mind and resisted it forcefully, earning her a smile and a nod of respect from Narcissa. The experience sent a chill running down her spine that she refused to acknowledge. "Thank you for inviting me to tea."

"My pleasure, dear. I'm looking forward to making better acquaintance with you. Draco has told us so much about you from school." Narcissa paused for a fraction of a second as if realizing that there was no _us_ , that Lucius was not with them... then composed herself and led them to the elegant dining room. She gestured to a chair, and Blinky appeared out of nowhere with a _pop!_ and pulled the chair out for Hermione. "And I hear you are to attend St. Catterwall's as well?"

"Yes, to study Inter-Species Magical Relations, it's a _fascinating_ subject from what I've heard of it," Hermione said brightly, sitting down at the table. "And hopefully I can put it to use at the Ministry afterwards..."

"Ah, yes, the Ministry," Narcissa interrupted. "It seems to be back in normal order now, does it not? Though it could use some better leadership in my opinion. A talented woman like yourself, now, would do very well for the magical world in a Ministry position. I do believe I still have some contacts in the political arena, and I should be happy to put you in contact."

Hermione took a sip of her tea and coughed to hide her discomfort, remembering how offended Draco had been at her refusing similar offers of help. "I shall keep it in mind, Mrs. Malfoy, thank you," she managed, plastering a smile onto her face.

Narcissa frowned suspiciously, but at a glare from Draco, made no further comment and sipped her tea.

"Mother, Hermione has always had a side fascination with Arithmancy," said Draco, changing the topic, his long legs stretched out under the table. "Are you still interested in the subject as well?"

Narcissa looked up, a sudden twinkle lighting up her usually cold eyes, a smile quirking up at the corners of her mouth. "I am indeed! Are you really, dear? Did you make it through Level Seven at Hogwarts?"

"I did," replied Hermione. "Though I think wizarding Arithmancy can stand to learn a lot from Muggle mathematics... I've also read some of the Muggle books on abstract maths, group theory and such, and it's _very_ interesting, and can be used anywhere..."

"Indeed, indeed, the one thing Muggles and Wizards have in common, I'd say," she replied, smiling in earnest now, "The language of humanity!"

"The language of humanity, I like that," said Hermione thoughtfully, smiling back and tilting her head to the side as she stirred an extra spoonful of sugar into her tea. "Numbers, music, storytelling, curiosity, a basic desire to explore... I'd say these are all things common to the entire human race..."

"You know," Narcissa said hesitantly, "The _Pureblood Post_ runs a weekly Arithmancy challenge, and I am a bit stuck on this week's. Would you like to take a look, and see if you have any ideas?"

Hermione recognized the invitation - to look at a newspaper that was biased against her entire kind - to bridge the gap between their worldviews over something as unbiased and certain as maths. "I'd love to!"

Narcissa stood up excitedly, her long straight hair whipping behind her, for all the world looking like a schoolgirl who had just been told class was letting out early. "Blinky, darling!" she called. "Fetch me the latest Post, will you?"

Pop! Blinky appeared with the newspaper a few moments later and set it down carefully between them. Hermione leaned over eagerly, wondering what mathematical secrets the high-status wizarding society discussed in their secret papers...

* * *

Draco watched his mother and Hermione with a smile as they wrestled with the Arithmancy problem, chattering at lightning speed and seeming to communicate by near-Legilimency despite having practically just met. To an outsider, it might have been a frightening sight. To Draco, it was simply the two brightest witches in the world being themselves in each others' company.

After a while, a nagging feeling in his gut called increasingly loudly him to attend to information stashed away in various corners of his mind. _Louise_. He stood and approached the two women, who paused, looking up at him.

He took Hermione's hands in his and kissed them. "Hermione, mother, there's something I need to do, I'll just be gone for a half hour or so, all right?" he said to Hermione's worried expression. _'Nothing bad, don't worry,'_ he reassured her. She nodded and let him go as his mother smiled absently in assent, and the two women returned to their puzzle-solving as he walked down the lengthy, ornate hallways towards the back of the Manor.

Draco strode along the grassy meadows, thinking of muggles and magic and mathematics and stars. When he reached the pond, he nodded to a large turtle sunning on a rock. The turtle nodded back.

Finally he reached the stream where Louise had been killed, where they used to play tag when they were little. Draco's stomach did a somersault when he spotted an engraved stone in a little grassy clearing just beyond the stream. He walked up to it and read the words.

 

In loving memory of

Louise Emilia Woods

May she never stop exploring.

 

Kneeling at the stone, he conjured a pale yellow flower and lowered it onto her tombstone. "I never got to give you this, that day at the pond," he whispered. "I'm sorry."

A great gust of wind blew through the trees, and though Muggles couldn't come back as ghosts, Draco felt that an intangible presence had just swept by and 'gone on', a specter freed from the natural world at long last.

Standing, he brushed off his knees and walked from the grave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: If you are a hardcore Dramione fan, STOP HERE and do not read the last chapter. For you, this is the end of the story. I've gotten so much hate for the epilogue that I feel a warning is in order.
> 
> If you are a hardcore canon J.K. Rowling fan like me, turn to the next page!


	41. Epilogue

**Seven Years Later...**

 

"I now pronounce you, Mr. Ronald Bilius Weasley and Ms. Hermione Jean Granger, married under the official law of the Ministry of Magic!"

Hermione was beaming so widely that Ron could barely kiss her to end the formal ceremonies, and they ended up with a sloppy peck followed by a hug to last the ages, Ron picking her up and twirling her around in her flowing wedding gown, his dress robes billowing behind him.

A lot had changed in the last seven years. Hermione had graduated in just three years from St. Catterwalls', and had been steadily climbing up the political ladder at the Ministry - thanks in part to the Malfoys' contacts - when Ron Weasley barged back into her life. A confident, self-sufficient Ron, with five years of service as an Auror under his belt, his hair longer, his casual grin now crinkling several scars on his face. A Ron who started visiting the upper floors of the Ministry every day for the sole purpose of asking Hermione, the recently-single Senior Undersecretary to the Minister, to go to dinner with him. An act he repeated for exactly thirteen consecutive days until she begrudgingly said yes.

A year and a half later, he was down on one knee and proposing, in the Shrieking Shack, no less, because he knew that Hermione would appreciate its historical significance. She had accepted without hesitation, this time around having no doubts in her mind.

_'I didn't actually really date anyone, you know, in all that time,' he had told her on their first date. 'I mean, I got into some mischief here and there at Muggle bars, but all the girls I'd think about getting serious with, I just couldn't deal with them, you know? Because they weren't you.' Ron had shaken his head fervently as he swallowed a large piece of chicken. 'None of them were you.'_

* * *

"Mrs. Hermione Granger-Weasley," said a familiar drawling voice from behind her on the dance floor. "May I have the next dance?"

"Malfoy!" She whirled around and took his hand. "I'm so glad you could make it!"

"Two years apart and I'm already back to Malfoy? You wound me, Weasley."

"DON'T call me Weasley."

 _'Fine, Hermione.'_ The unspoken words came haltingly through their hands, through an old link between them that was now rusted and fading, a promise of something that could have been, but was never meant to be, in the end.

_'How have you been, Draco?'_

_'Surviving. Thriving. Inventing new potions. Engaged.'_

_'To Astoria? I've heard, congratulations! And how are your parents?'_

_'Mother is happy. Father is... managing.'_ His grey eyes suddenly unfocused, and Hermione wondered for a moment whether she did the right thing. She had pulled strings at the Ministry to get Lucius permission to be under permanent house arrest at the Manor rather than imprisoned in Azkaban. _'Happier at home than in Azkaban, at any rate. Thanks for what you did.'_

_'It was the least I could do, for all that you and your mother did for my career.'_

_'You're becoming quite the opportunist, aren't you?'_

_'Learnt from the best.'_ Hermione smiled.

Draco turned them in their dance. _'Blinky seems to be happy too these days, over there with his new friend.'_ Hermione could now see over his shoulder towards the table where Max Carrow sat back in his chair with a skeptical look on his face, next to Blinky, who was standing on his chair and swaying along to the music in a sort of solo dance.

_'He's free now, isn't he, ever since we broke up.'_

_'A breakup like that will do that to an elf. He seems to be enjoying his freedom, though. Took a liking to Max and serves him as if he's his master, though he's not bound by anything Max says.'_

_'That's excellent! Good for him!'_

Draco smirked and spun Hermione around. _'Congratulations, by the way. You and I...'_ he paused, and Hermione thought he might have decided against whatever he was going to say. _'Well, it just wasn't going to work, was it?'_

She remembered, with a jolt, the last days of their fracturing partnership, the pressures from Draco's mother for him to marry a Pureblood to avoid the risk of fathering a Squib, the impracticality of marrying a former Death Eater in the light of her political goals... Yes, Ron was the safer choice, the wiser choice. The one society was ready for. And Astoria, a safer choice for him...

 _'Agreed,'_ thought Draco, and she blushed as she realized she was sending all of her thoughts real-time. _'Let's make the next generation free of these silly prejudices, shall we?'_

"To the next generation," she said aloud as the dance came to a close, sending him a mental image of two glasses clinking together in cheers.

Suddenly Draco was shoved aside out of her grip, and Hermione found herself being swept up into the next dance by a very tipsy Harry, his normally messy hair completely wild, his glasses askew.

"Ow! Malfoy!" he cried as Draco smacked him upside the head and stalked away, glaring in Harry's direction as Hermione laughed.

"Well, you did shove him just a moment ago."

"Did I?" asked Harry innocently as he spun Hermione thrice then caught her awkwardly in his arms again. "Must've been the firewhisky."

"Oh, Harry," she said affectionately, and leaned on the shoulder of her best friend as the magical celebration of her and Ron's wedding carried on all around them, in the light of a hundred floating candles under a canopy of stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had initially intended Hermione to be marrying Harry in this epilogue, not Ron, because throughout the book I had hints of how well those two get along. But then I couldn't bring myself to be unfaithful to the books, so instead I made it clear how much Ron changed and grew up.
> 
> That's all, hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> EDIT: The comments on this epilogue are incredibly hateful. If you hated it, I get it, you're not alone, everyone wanted Draco and Hermione to get married. But I assure you I didn't write this to intentionally upset anyone at the end here. I wrote this entire story in private, including this epilogue, months and months before deciding to post it online to see what people thought.
> 
> For me, the point of this book was not to be a Dramione love story. It was Draco's redemption arc and character development, a mystery novel about Hermione's parents' memories, and an excuse for thinly-veiled political debates. Making Hermione and Draco fall in love neatly accomplished all three of these, and romance makes things more exciting anyway. But I can't imagine an actual marriage working out between those two, especially not with how I developed their characters in this story. I'm sorry that it disappointed so many of you.


End file.
